RSYTHS
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 
 
 *CRES OF SO-
 
 JOHN FORSYTH'S AUNTS
 
 Previous Books 
 by Eliza Orne White 
 
 Miss Brooks 
 
 A Lover of Truth 
 
 A Browning Courtship and 
 
 Other Stories 
 The Coming of Theodora 
 Winterborough 
 A Little Girl of Long Ago 
 When Molly Was Six 
 Edna and Her Brothers
 
 JOHN 
 FORSrTH'S 
 
 BY 
 
 ELIZA ORNE WHITE 
 
 New York: M c Clure, Phillips 
 
 f Company 
 
 Mcmi
 
 Copyright, 1901, by 
 McCLURE, PHILLIPS & CO. 
 
 FIRST IMPRESSION, OCTOBER, 1901 
 SECOND IMPRESSION, NOVEMBER, 1901
 
 tt/ff.tff 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. JOHN FORSYTH'S AUNTS 3 
 
 II. THE CONVERSION OF Miss DEBORAH 29 
 
 III. MR. GRAY'S RIVAL 53 
 
 IV. THE NEWHALL FARM 77 
 
 V. COWSLIP 93 
 
 VI. AN OLD LOVER 115 
 
 VII. A NEIGHBORHOOD ROMANCE 143 
 
 VIII. A SUMMER OUTING 179 
 
 IX. Miss DEBORAH'S GARDEN 199 
 
 X. A STRUGGLE FOR INDEPENDENCE 217 
 
 XI. A TASTE OF FREEDOM 247 
 
 1763065
 
 JOHN FORSYTH'S AUNTS
 
 I 
 
 JOHN FORSYTH'S AUNTS 
 
 " T WISH to goodness John would marry again," 
 A said his aunt Deborah, as she began to clear 
 off the breakfast-table. " He needs a wife to 
 keep him in order and look after the twins. Lily," 
 as. a fair-haired little girl appeared at the window, 
 " go and put on your rubbers there was a heavy 
 dew last night and tell Jack that he mustn't go 
 off the place. Those children are enough to try the 
 patience of a saint, and as for their father, it's the 
 third time he's been late to breakfast. I am sure 
 Bridget will give warning soon." 
 
 " If you will keep his breakfast warm for him he'll 
 be late every morning," said her sister Letitia. 
 " You and Lucy spoil him." 
 
 " It is the matter-of-course way he takes what we 
 do for him that tries my soul," Miss Deborah con- 
 tinued. " I believe he thinks it is the joy of our lives 
 to have a man upsetting all our ways and two chil- 
 dren scattering their playthings like the morning 
 
 3
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 dew all over our parlor, and I am sure John feels 
 he's doing me a favor every time he brings me a but- 
 ton to sew on. I don't wonder five years of this 
 kind of thing killed John's poor mother; there are 
 three of us and they have only been here a week. Of 
 course I am glad to have them here for the summer, 
 but as for going to New York to keep house for him 
 next winter, I won't ! " 
 
 " I am sure I won't," said Miss Letitia ; " and 
 Lucy doesn't know any more about house-keeping 
 than a child of ten. The only way out of the dif- 
 ficulty is for him to marry some attractive woman 
 like Laura Macauley." 
 
 " Laura Macauley ! " cried Miss Deborah. " She 
 isn't in the least domestic. She wastes too much 
 time under her sketching umbrella. Frances Si- 
 monds would make him a far better wife; she's the 
 salt of the earth." 
 
 " The salt of the earth often crystallizes in ugly 
 shapes," returned Miss Letitia. " I grant that Fran- 
 ces has all the virtues, but, like all men, John is sure 
 to have his fancy taken by a beautiful face." 
 
 " I should fall in love with Esther Norris, if I 
 were a man," said Lucy, the youngest sister. " She 
 is so pretty and fascinating, and she would be de- 
 voted to the twins." 
 
 " She is a mere child ; she isn't more than eight- 
 een. Lucy, I am surprised at you," and Miss Deb-
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 orah seized her sister's cup and saucer and plunged 
 them into the dish-tub. 
 
 " Deborah," remonstrated Lucy mildly, " I want- 
 ed another cup of coffee." 
 
 " Never mind, child. One is as much as is good 
 for you. I have a brilliant idea," she added present- 
 ly ; "I'll ask Frances here to-night, to help eat your 
 birthday cake, Lucy ; that will give John a chance to 
 meet her in a natural, informal way." 
 
 " Deborah ! " expostulated Miss Letitia. " It 
 would look so pointed to ask one girl alone. Why 
 not ask Laura too? Lucy would like that much 
 better." 
 
 " If you really want to please me, you'll invite 
 Esther Norris," said Lucy. " You know I never can 
 get on with Laura Macauley, and after all it is my 
 birthday party, not John's." 
 
 " Oh, well, have Esther too, if you want, dear," 
 said Miss Deborah, kindly; "she'll help amuse the 
 twins. Of course we must not give John the least 
 hint of our plans," she added. 
 
 At this point John sauntered into the room and 
 walked up to his aunt Lucy. 
 
 " I've been told that somebody has a birthday," he 
 remarked, as he slipped a little package into her 
 hand. " Is it twenty-five you are this time? " 
 
 " Oh, John, how I wish it were! " 
 
 Miss Lucy had the golden hair and slender figure
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 that suggest youth, and they made her faded com- 
 plexion seem like an anachronism. She looked like 
 a young girl who had gone to sleep and waked to 
 find herself a middle-aged woman. Her older sis- 
 ters had dark eyes and brown hair that was thickly 
 streaked with gray. There was a strong family re- 
 semblance between them, but Miss Letitia, who was 
 the handsomer of the two and much the taller, had 
 a stately air, as if she felt that no lot was superior 
 to her own, while Miss Deborah never seemed to 
 think about herself. 
 
 " I'm sorry to be late to breakfast again," said 
 John. " It is awfully good of you not to scold me." 
 
 " I hope your steak isn't done too much," said 
 Miss Deborah, somewhat disarmed by his genial 
 manner. " By the way, John," she added casually, 
 "you mustn't make any engagement for to-night, 
 for your aunt Lucy will be so disappointed if you 
 are not here to eat her birthday cake." 
 
 " All right, I'll be sure to be on hand." 
 
 When her nephew came into the house that after- 
 noon so late that his escape seemed impossible, Miss 
 Letitia began diplomatically : 
 
 " John, we felt that your aunt Lucy needed a lit- 
 tle diversion on her birthday, and so we have asked 
 some ladies to tea to-night." 
 
 " Ladies ! Then I shan't stay ; why didn't you 
 tell me before?"
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " There are only three of them," Miss Deborah 
 hastened to add, " and they are such nice girls." 
 
 "Girls! Worse and worse! Ladies are bad 
 enough, but I'll be hanged if I ever know what to 
 say to a parcel of girls. I'll go and take tea with 
 Ned Simonds." 
 
 " His sister Frances is to be here to-night," said 
 Miss Deborah. " You need not be afraid of her, she 
 is so shy. It will be too rude of you to go off, es- 
 pecially as Frances is coming in at the gate 
 now." 
 
 " I can go out the back way," he suggested, but 
 Miss Lucy caught his hand as he passed her. " You 
 wouldn't desert your old aunt on her birthday I am 
 sure, dear," she said, and John, who was very fond 
 of his aunt Lucy, yielded. His magnanimity was 
 not sufficient, however, to cause him to be polite to 
 her guest. 
 
 Frances Simonds looked as if, to be in complete 
 harmony with the general scheme of nature, she 
 ought to have been a middle-aged woman instead of 
 a girl of twenty, for there was little in her grave ex- 
 terior to suggest youth ; but, although she was plain, 
 her face was not uninteresting, and she gave the im- 
 pression of having a great deal to say, if only she 
 could find the courage to say it. 
 
 " I have often heard my brother speak of you, Mr. 
 Forsyth," she began in a low voice.
 
 8 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Yes ? I met him on the street to-day ; he is look- 
 ing very well." 
 
 ' He is very well he is always well except," 
 she continued with nervous conscientiousness, " that 
 he had typhoid fever last autumn and almost died." 
 
 This was such a preposterous ending to her sen- 
 tence that she wanted to- laugh, but felt too keenly 
 mortified. 
 
 There was a pause, and then Frances began again, 
 " It is a very pleasant day." 
 
 " Do you think so ? I prefer summer weather in 
 June." 
 
 This was the extent of their conversation for the 
 evening. Frances was too much crushed to attempt 
 to renew it. 
 
 Happily a diversion was soon caused by the 
 arrival of Miss Macauley. She was a handsome 
 woman of thirty, with a fine figure, and a quan- 
 tity of fair hair elaborately dressed. Her lilac- 
 and-white foulard silk had the perfection of de- 
 tail that one associates with a fashion-plate. 
 In spite of himself, John was soon launched 
 in a conversation with her, or to speak more 
 accurately, he listened, and replied occasionally 
 in monosyllables. She touched with easy con- 
 fidence upon politics, literature and art, and her 
 talk was as conventional as her gown. She was like 
 a hundred other well-bred women whom John had
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 9 
 
 met, and although they were never stimulating, they 
 always set him at his ease. A little later the arrival 
 of Esther Norris made a breezy interruption. 
 
 " How kind of you to remember my birthday, 
 dear child," said Miss Lucy, as the young girl gave 
 her a bunch of blush roses. " I love these roses bet- 
 ter than any flowers in the world, but you must keep 
 some of them, dearest," and she fastened two into 
 Esther's bodice. " They just match your pink rib- 
 bons, although they are not so bright as your 
 cheeks." 
 
 " I had no idea I was so late," said Esther, catch- 
 ing a look of disapproval on Miss Deborah's face, 
 and glancing hastily at the clock. " I stopped to 
 make friends with the twins." 
 
 " I am depending upon seeing the twins," said 
 Miss Macauley. " I am very fond of children. 
 Here they are at the window, now. Do come in, 
 clears, and see me." 
 
 "Children, what have you been doing?" cried 
 Miss Deborah, as the two promptly accepted this in- 
 vitation, unabashed by their disheveled appearance. 
 
 " Watering the rose-bushes," Jack replied. 
 
 " Watering the rose-bushes ! Watering your- 
 selves I should say. Who would believe I dressed 
 you in clean clothes half an hour ago? Don't you 
 remember I told you never to touch the hose? " 
 
 " We've had a fine time rolling down the bank,"
 
 io John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 said Jack, wisely ignoring this question. " Did you 
 ever roll down a bank? " he asked Miss Macauley in 
 engaging tones, as she begged a kiss from him. 
 
 " No, I can't say I ever did." 
 
 " I have," said Esther. " Ever so many times. 
 It's great fun." 
 
 " I say, Aunt Deborah," Jack added, emboldened 
 by the interest these young ladies were taking in 
 him, " can't Lily and I come in to tea ? " 
 
 " No, you can't." 
 
 " We'll be very good. Please, please let us. 
 There's going to be lobster salad, and strawberries, 
 and pine-apple ice-cream," he confided to Miss Mac- 
 auley, " and Aunt Lucy's birthday cake, with wal- 
 nuts in it and a frosting. She isn't going to have 
 any candles because she's so old it would make too 
 many. Lily and I don't think a birthday cake is any 
 fun without candles, and we are going to have can- 
 dles if we live to be a hundred. We are seven now," 
 he stated, as he took Miss Macauley's lilac ribbons in 
 his grimy little hands. " How old are you? " 
 
 " Children," said Miss Deborah, " you can go 
 now. You talk altogether too much." 
 
 After their guests' departure, as Miss Deborah 
 was putting out the two extra gas-burners that had 
 been lighted in their honor, she took John to task 
 for not talking enough. 
 
 " You were all chattering so fast that you did not
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts n 
 
 give me any chance," he returned, " and I felt as if 
 my son had talked enough to keep up the credit of 
 the family." 
 
 " We have overdone matters in our desire to leave 
 everything to time and John," said Miss Letitia, a 
 month later. " It is evident that he hasn't the faint- 
 est idea of devoting himself seriously to any girl, 
 and yet he goes sketching with Laura so often that 
 Mrs. Simonds asked me to-day if it were true that he 
 was engaged to her. How I wish it were ! He likes 
 her immensely. I am so glad I started that reading- 
 club! He told me he had never heard any woman 
 read aloud so well." 
 
 " He has grown very fond of Frances," Miss 
 Deborah affirmed. " He said to me the other day 
 that she was the kind of woman in whom he had en- 
 tire confidence, and he thought it was so kind of her 
 to help me make those little gowns and aprons for 
 Lily." 
 
 " He told me that Esther was the prettiest girl he 
 had ever seen," said Lucy, " and the twins are so 
 fond of her." 
 
 " They are all nice girls," Miss Letitia admitted. 
 " but I can't help feeling that Laura is especially well 
 suited to him. Although I shrink from it, I am sure 
 it is my duty to give him a hint on the subject." 
 
 " If you are going to speak to him I certainly 
 shall," Miss Deborah announced, " for you will say
 
 12 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 everything you can to prejudice him in favor of 
 Laura." 
 
 When John went into the library that afternoon to 
 write some letters he found his aunt Letitia there, 
 occupied as usual with a book. 
 
 " John," she began affably, " I was just wonder- 
 ing if I could not persuade you to make some calls 
 with me." 
 
 " I am afraid you can't. Making calls is not in 
 my line. I always say the wrong thing." 
 
 "You never do yourself justice; only yesterday, 
 someone who was it? oh, yes, Laura Macauley 
 said you were so interesting. She finds us very quiet 
 here, she is in New York so much in the winter. 
 She is a girl calculated to shine in the best society. 
 Don't you think so? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 This admission encouraged Miss Letitia to pro- 
 ceed, and she led up to the desired point by such 
 gradual approaches that her nephew had not the 
 faintest idea what was coming. She ended by say- 
 ing that if she wanted a companion she should 
 choose Laura Macauley. 
 
 " Yes? " he said, politely. 
 
 " John, you are very stupid. I shall have to tell 
 you in plain language that you are reported to be 
 engaged to her, and that nothing would make me 
 happier
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 13 
 
 " I, engaged to her ! " 
 
 " But, John, you always have more to say to her 
 than to any other girl, and you were so delighted 
 with the way she read Barrie. I thought you liked 
 her." 
 
 John laughed in spite of his vexation. 
 
 " I like her well enough, but you can hardly ex- 
 pect me to marry a woman because she reads Barrie 
 well and is an inveterate talker. I hope Miss Macau- 
 ley won't get wind of this ridiculous rumor, for it 
 would annoy her exceedingly," and he stalked out of 
 the room and took refuge in the parlor, where his 
 aunt Lucy was lying on the sofa. 
 
 " What is the matter, dear? " she asked. " You 
 look vexed." 
 
 " I am vexed. What fools women are ! It seems 
 that some idiot has started the report of my engage- 
 ment to Miss Macauley ! " 
 
 " How absurd ! " his aunt exclaimed sympathetic- 
 ally, " of course you could never fancy her." She 
 paused, and then went on nervously, " but I must 
 say, dear, that I wish you could love some " 
 
 " Aunt Lucy," he broke in, " I thought you knew 
 me too well to imagine that I could ever care enough 
 for any woman to marry again." 
 
 " I know how devotedly you loved Emily, but I 
 am sure it would be much better for your children, 
 and that you would be far happier yourself, if you
 
 14 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 had a companion, a charming woman, to share your 
 life." 
 
 " I have been thinking so too, dear Aunt Lucy, 
 and I hope to persuade you to come and brighten up 
 our home for us when we go back to New York." 
 
 " I am too old and too dull a woman, John dear. 
 You are so alone, now your mother has gone, 
 and you are still so young you need the influence 
 of some bright " 
 
 " Aunt Lucy, I shall never marry again. I tell 
 you so once for all. And unless you promise to 
 come to New York with me this autumn I shall com- 
 mit suicide. Will you promise ?" 
 
 " I suppose I shall have to promise," she said 
 with a faint laugh. 
 
 John thought it best to make his escape at this 
 juncture, and it occurred to him that the house of his 
 friend, Ned Simonds, would be a pleasant refuge. 
 Even the most inveterate of gossips could not report 
 his engagement to Frances. John met his aunt 
 Deborah as he was going out of the door. 
 
 " I have been wanting a chance all day to have a 
 little talk with you," she said. " Where are you go- 
 ing now ? " 
 
 " To take tea with Ned Simonds." 
 
 " I'll walk part way with you. I am always glad 
 to have you go there. Frances is such a nice girl, 
 with no nonsense about her."
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 15 
 
 John assented heartily. 
 
 " John, we all think you ought to marry again," 
 Miss Deborah began with her usual bluntness. 
 " Don't be influenced by what Letitia and Lucy say. 
 I am sure you will agree with me in thinking that 
 Frances Simonds will make you a good, practical 
 wife." 
 
 " Good heavens! Aunt Deborah! You all speak 
 as if I had only to offer myself to any woman to be 
 accepted. I am not the kind of man to make an im- 
 pression on a young girl." 
 
 " I know that, but Frances isn't like most girls. 
 She would not mind your blunt ways." 
 
 " Indeed," said John shortly, not over- well pleased 
 to have his opinion of himself corroborated. 
 
 " Frances would be devoted to Lily and Jack," 
 Miss Deborah continued, " and she is very bright al- 
 though she is so shy. She has learned a great deal 
 about illness from her father, in fact her mother 
 says she means to be a trained nurse when she is old 
 enough, but a happy marriage " 
 
 " Aunt Deborah, you will drive me crazy between 
 you. You have spoiled all my pleasure here. I shall 
 go away to-morrow, and I sha'n't come back until it 
 is time to take the children home in the autumn, un- 
 less you promise not to say one word more to me on 
 the subject, and to tell every man, woman and child 
 in Eppingham that you know, for a positive fact,
 
 16 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 I shall never be engaged to anybody ! By the way, 
 
 Aunt Lucy has agreed to keep house for me next 
 
 winter." 
 
 " Lucy ? That is preposterous ! She is much too 
 
 delicate, and she does not know anything about 
 
 house-keeping." 
 
 " She knows quite enough to satisfy me." 
 
 The next morning John went to Mt. Desert, 
 
 where he stayed until he was summoned home by 
 
 the following telegram: 
 
 " Jack broke leg falling from hay-cart. Improv- 
 ing. Wants you." 
 
 It was a cold August evening when John arrived, 
 and after giving his aunts a hasty greeting he rushed 
 up to the nursery, pausing before the open door, for 
 he heard an unfamiliar voice. 
 
 A wood-fire was crackling on the hearth, throw- 
 ing its flickering light on Jack's subdued face, as 
 he lay in bed, and on Lily, who was sitting on the 
 hearth-rug with her arms around Esther Norris. 
 John had never seen a more charming contrast than 
 his fair-haired little daughter and Esther with her 
 brilliant coloring and dark hair and eyes. She was 
 telling the children a fairy tale, and it was of absorb- 
 ing interest, judging by the expression of breathless 
 attention on their faces.
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 17 
 
 " Why, there's father," Jack called out. 
 
 " Good-evening, Mr. Forsyth," said Esther, rising 
 hastily. " I am glad to see you back again. I must 
 go now, children." 
 
 " Oh, please, please stay and finish the story," 
 Jack entreated, " or we shall wish father hadn't 
 come home." 
 
 " We are glad he has come," said Lily with 
 the tact of her sex, as she gave her father one of her 
 tempestuous hugs. " But we do want the rest of the 
 story. Father would like it so much too. It is about 
 a little boy and a little girl, father, who were turned 
 into statues by a hateful old witch, and just as you 
 came in a prince was coming along, and we are crazy 
 to know what happened next." 
 
 " Do tell us what happened next, Miss Norris. I 
 shall be very sorry if I drive you away." 
 
 " I must go, for it is getting late." 
 
 John had a momentary pang, for the three had 
 looked so happy before they had caught sight of him, 
 and now a slight frost seemed to have touched them 
 all. 
 
 " Won't you let father come to the tea-party to- 
 morrow? " Lily begged, as Esther kissed her good- 
 night. 
 
 " It is to be strictly a children's party, with only 
 you and Jack, and your aunt Lucy and me. I am 
 afraid your father is too old."
 
 i8 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " I am not so old as aunt Lucy." 
 
 " You are a great deal older as we count age." 
 
 " I will be so good. I am a much better example 
 to youth than aunt Lucy is." 
 
 " That is just the trouble. You will behave alto- 
 gether too well. If we let you come will you prom- 
 ise to tell us stories, and cut out paper soldiers for 
 us, and drink lemonade out of a doll's tumbler?" 
 
 " I will promise anything, if you will only let me 
 come." 
 
 This was the beginning of a series of enchanted 
 days, that made John feel as if he had gone back to 
 the time when he was a happy, improvident boy. 
 Esther's eighteen years put such a barrier of youth 
 between them that he enjoyed being with her as 
 frankly and simply as if she were one of his children, 
 while on her side the eager girl, who longed to see 
 the world, felt the charm of the older man, who had 
 had a varied experience in many lands. 
 
 When Jack was well enough to go out of doors 
 once more, his convalescence was celebrated by 
 drives, picnics, and rows on the river that wound 
 lazily in and out under overhanging boughs. It did 
 not matter to John where they went, or how many 
 others shared Esther, if only she gave the party the 
 life and charm of her presence. 
 
 At last the time came when John had to set the 
 day for going home. His aunt Lucy had not ob-
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 19 
 
 tained without a struggle the consent of her sisters 
 to keep house for him, but John had a peremptory 
 way of settling things, and had overruled all their 
 objections by remarking that he wanted his aunt 
 Lucy, and he intended to have her ; that was the long 
 and the short of the matter. Her own feelings were 
 mixed. She dreaded the responsibility, she who had 
 hitherto been shielded from every care, and yet she 
 exulted in the prospect of having a chance at last to 
 lead her own life. And it made her happy to think 
 that John wanted her. 
 
 The children were very unhappy at the idea of 
 parting from Esther, and Jack suggested that per- 
 haps she would go back with them to be their gov- 
 erness. 
 
 " My dear child, it would never do. She does not 
 know enough to teach," said Miss Letitia, whose 
 standard was high. 
 
 " Oh, I guess she'd know enough to teach us," 
 Jack remarked. " She's got to do something now 
 her father has lost his money. She told us so." 
 
 " And they are going to move into a smaller 
 house," said Lily. " I don't believe there would be 
 room for her at home." 
 
 " She is altogether too young," said Miss Deb- 
 orah. 
 
 Their aunt Lucy thought it a delightful plan, 
 and so did their father, and when he approved a
 
 2o John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 plan it was apt to be carried out at once. He and 
 the twins went over to the Norrises in fine spirits, 
 that very afternoon, to see Esther. 
 
 She was alone in the old-fashioned parlor, which 
 was a melancholy travesty of its former self, for the 
 carpet was up, and a packing-box half-full of books 
 was standing on the floor. 
 
 " Good-afternoon," she said. " I can't shake 
 hands with you. Mine are so dusty. It is a judg- 
 ment on me for not taking better care of the books 
 when they were on the shelves." 
 
 " Miss Esther, you don't know how sorry I was to 
 hear of your father's losses," John began, " but I am 
 hoping that a great happiness may come to me and 
 my children in consequence. I have come to ask if 
 you will not be their governess, and go back with 
 them and aunt Lucy and me next week." 
 
 Esther was silent, and he proceeded to unfold his 
 plan at greater length. It was so advantageous to 
 her that he had not once thought of her refusal. 
 
 When he stopped speaking she said, "You are 
 very kind, Mr. Forsyth, but I cannot possibly take 
 the position." 
 
 " Why Miss Esther," protested Jack, " you told 
 us you hated to think you might not see us again for 
 ever so long, and you said you thought it would be 
 horrid to travel with that 'old lady who wants you to 
 go to California."
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 21 
 
 " I know, but I have almost made up my mind to 
 go with her." 
 
 " And you seriously mean that you would prefer 
 this to teaching children who are devotedly attached 
 to you ? " John asked. 
 
 " Yes, I mean it." 
 
 She had paused before she answered. Her back 
 was turned towards John, as she stooped to put a 
 book into the packing-box. 
 
 " It is very rude of me, I know, to go on with my 
 work," she observed. 
 
 " I wish you would stop just a minute and sit here 
 quietly where I can look into your face. Miss Es- 
 ther, you must come with us. We can't any of us 
 get on without you." 
 
 Her unexpected opposition only made him the 
 more eager to carry out his purpose. 
 
 " I am not used to having my wishes thwarted," 
 he added. 
 
 " I am afraid you will have to try that discipline 
 for once." 
 
 " Give me one good reason and I will be satisfied. 
 Or rather I will prove it is no reason. You are very 
 fond of Aunt Lucy and the children, so the trouble 
 must be with me. You think I haven't a good tem- 
 per, and that is true, but I do not know why you 
 should fear it, for I could not be angry with you. 
 I suppose you feel that it would be too quiet for you
 
 22 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 in a house where there are only older people and 
 children, but we would give you a great deal of free- 
 dom." 
 
 " Please do not urge me," she entreated. " I 
 know I am doing right." 
 
 " I wish I knew what your morbid scruple was. I 
 believe it is some quirk of your New England con- 
 science. Come, tell me, isn't it ? " 
 
 " I don't think so. I would rather travel," she as- 
 serted hastily. 
 
 " You would rather travel. You shall travel all 
 you like. I am thinking of taking Aunt Lucy and 
 the children abroad next summer," he said, boldly, 
 improvising this scheme on the spur of the moment. 
 
 " Please do not say any more about it," Esther 
 begged. " I have made up my mind not to go to 
 you, and I shall not change." 
 
 " Very well, as you like," John returned coldly. 
 
 He had never felt such bitter disappointment, or 
 so humiliating a sense of impotence. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Esther," said Lily, " it will be terrible 
 to say good-by to you ; it will be worse than parting 
 from the Simondses' yellow kitten." 
 
 A few minutes after their departure Miss Lucy 
 softly entered the Norrises' parlor to see if she 
 could not make Esther change her purpose. Esther 
 was sitting on the floor with one arm resting on the 
 packing-box, and her face buried in her hands.
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 23 
 
 " My dear child, what is the matter? " Miss Lucy 
 asked. 
 
 " Nothing of any consequence," she answered 
 with a little sob. " I was feeling blue at the idea of 
 leaving home, that is all." 
 
 " My dear, as you have to leave home, why can't 
 you go to New York with us? " 
 
 Esther turned her head away quickly, but Miss 
 Lucy saw the tell-tale color mounting into her face. 
 Then she knew the reason, and Esther knew that she 
 knew it, but they both pretended that they did not 
 know. 
 
 Miss Lucy went up to the girl and drew her to- 
 wards her, kissing her gently. " Dear," she said, 
 " of course it would be dull for you to be with 
 us." 
 
 " You will tell Mr. Forsyth that you think it 
 would be dull for me? " Esther begged with a little 
 break in her voice. 
 
 " Yes, dear, I will tell him. He is a great deal 
 older than you are," she added, as she kissed Esther 
 again, " and yet I used to hope but he is one of 
 those rare men who, having loved once, never can 
 love again." 
 
 " Well, Aunt Lucy," said John, as he looked up 
 from a book he had been making a pretence of read- 
 ing, " what success did you have? "
 
 24 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " None, John, but I see her point of view now, 
 and I think she is right. She is a young girl, and 
 she needs young society, and then this is my point 
 of view, not hers she ought to be where she has a 
 chance to meet men who might fall in love with 
 her." 
 
 " Men who might fall in love with her! " cried 
 John. The mere idea filled him with torturing 
 jealousy. 
 
 " Yes, I used to hope you might," Miss Lucy con- 
 fessed, " but when you told me how impossible it 
 was for you ever to care for any woman " 
 
 " Aunt Lucy," said John, breathlessly, " do you 
 mean you think it possible that that she could 
 care for me? " 
 
 " How can I tell, dear? I should say you were 
 a great deal too quiet to suit her, but one never 
 knows what is going on in a girl's mind. There is 
 about as much probability that she refused to go 
 back with you because she was afraid she might 
 grow to like you too well, as because she was afraid 
 of not liking you well enough." 
 
 Some days later Lucy Wyatt had the satisfaction 
 of announcing to her sisters John's engagement to 
 Esther Norris. 
 
 " I am simply electrified by this news," Miss Deb- 
 orah exclaimed. " That is all the reliance that can 
 be placed on your solemn statement, Lucy, that John
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 25 
 
 could never care enough for any woman to marry 
 fcgain." 
 
 " Well, don't annihilate me, dear; I was only re- 
 peating what he said." 
 
 " Since he has the capacity for caring, I wish to 
 goodness he had fallen in love with a sensible girl 
 like Frances Simonds, she would have made him a 
 far better wife; but men are all alike, they prefer a 
 pretty face to all the virtues." 
 
 " That is just what I told you in the beginning," 
 said Miss Letitia.
 
 THE CONVERSION OF MISS 
 DEBORAH
 
 II 
 
 THE CONVERSION OF MISS 
 DEBORAH 
 
 EVERY one in Eppingham was astonished when 
 the Wyatts set up a pet kitten, but no one was 
 half so much surprised as they were them- 
 selves. Miss Letitia and Miss Deborah, who had 
 always scorned other people's pets, had never in- 
 tended to have a cat, but as is the case sometimes 
 with greatness, it had been thrust upon them. Miss 
 Lucy, on the contrary, had always longed for one, 
 but she was so much younger than her sisters, that 
 her wishes were not considered of any importance. 
 The kitten's acquaintance had first been made by 
 Miss Lucy. It was on an afternoon in May, when 
 Lucy, sustained by the consciousness of a new spring 
 suit, had gone out to make some calls. She went 
 into the library first, to show herself to her sisters. 
 
 " Turn around," Miss Letitia commanded. 
 " Your jacket is too long under the arms," she an- 
 
 29
 
 30 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 nounced. " It wrinkles, and will have to be short- 
 ened." 
 
 " It doesn't look badly, child," Miss Deborah 
 hastened to assure her. " Letitia would see wrinkles 
 under an angel's wings." 
 
 " Your hat is very becoming," Miss Letitia com- 
 mented graciously. " 1 am glad you took my ad- 
 vice and decided on violets." 
 
 " I wish you had chosen pink roses," said Miss 
 Deborah. " Violets look so old for you, dear, es- 
 pecially with that gray suit. A woman can wear 
 violets and gray gowns at any age." 
 
 " I suspect I am ' any age,' " Lucy said, as she 
 stood before the old-fashioned mirror pinning on her 
 veil. 
 
 " Nonsense, child ! " and Miss Deborah, who was 
 fourteen years older than Lucy, gave an admiring 
 glance at her sister's slight figure and golden hair. 
 " With that spotted veil on you don't look more than 
 twenty-five, does she, Letitia ? " 
 
 " Thirty-five," said Miss Letitia. 
 
 As Lucy was a little over forty, she felt grateful, 
 even for this amendment. 
 
 "Have you got your card-case?" asked Miss 
 Deborah. 
 
 " Yes, dear." 
 
 " Be sure you go to see Laura Macauley," her 
 sister Letitia admonished her. " It is three months
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 31 
 
 since she asked us to tea, and you have not made 
 your party-call." 
 
 As Lucy stepped out into the fragrant sunshine 
 she had that unreasoning thrill and illogical cer- 
 tainty of coming happiness that the spring-time used 
 to bring her in her girlhood. Then, with a sharp 
 little pang, she remembered that there was nothing 
 very interesting that could happen to her any more. 
 As she passed down the brick walk between the 
 two huge lilac bushes full of their purple, half-opened 
 buds, she lingered a moment to pick a spray in 
 memory of old times. The world was beautiful on 
 that May afternoon, with that subtle hint of greater 
 beauty yet to come, which is the joy of youth and 
 early spring. 
 
 " Nothing is ever so beautiful as it promises to 
 be," she thought, as she looked at the shimmer of 
 green on the maples. " For that reason, if for no 
 other, there is nothing so lovely in all nature as 
 May." 
 
 The spray of lilacs called up a host of memories 
 of earlier days, and she felt very lonely as she went 
 down the village street. It was a deep-seated lone- 
 liness, which the making of a number of calls did 
 little .to dispel. She left the most formidable until 
 the last. 
 
 " I do hope Laura won't be in," Lucy thought, as 
 she rang the Macauleys' bell, and then she reflected
 
 32 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 that it was absurd for her to be afraid of a girl 
 who was at least ten years younger than she 
 was. 
 
 A trim maid opened the door and looked at Lucy 
 and her new gray suit with supercilious superi- 
 ority. 
 
 Miss Macauley was at home, and Lucy walked 
 into the irreproachable parlor with the feeling of 
 miserable anticipation that we associate with the 
 dentist's office. It was an immaculate room, with a 
 polished hard-wood floor, almost covered by an 
 oriental rug, and a dark-red wall-paper sprinkled 
 over with engravings in black frames. Lucy looked 
 in vain for a single sign of reassuring shabbiness. 
 Presently, as if to make her feel more at home, 
 there came in at the partly open door the most lov- 
 able gray kitten that she had ever seen. Nothing 
 could have been more at variance with the surround- 
 ing stiffness than this little creature with his un- 
 conscious grace and confiding certainty of a wel- 
 come. 
 
 " Oh, you beauty, you dear," Lucy said. " Come 
 and see your old auntie." 
 
 The kitten promptly accepted this invitation and 
 jumped into his new friend's lap. 
 
 " Good-afternoon, I am so glad to see you," and 
 Miss Macauley, in an elaborate pale-green gown, 
 swept into the room, extending her hand with her
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 33 
 
 stereotyped smile and conventionally cordial man- 
 ner, which did not deceive her visitor. 
 
 " Pussy, naughty pussy," she said, " get down out 
 of Miss Wyatt's lap; you will tumble her pretty 
 new frock." 
 
 Instead of obeying, the kitten nestled down com- 
 fortably, making a charming harmony of color, a 
 dark-gray fluffy ball, against the lighter gray of 
 Lucy's dress. 
 
 " Dear pussy," she said, stroking him gently. 
 
 " You are evidently very fond of cats." 
 
 " I adore them." 
 
 " I want to find a good home for this one. We 
 have two others, both promised, but you can have 
 this little fellow if you want him." 
 
 " I should love to have him, but I can't, for 
 Letitia and Deborah are both prejudiced against 
 cats. He is the most enchanting kitten I ever saw. 
 What is his name? " 
 
 " He hasn't any. W T e have such a succession of 
 them that I can't name them all." 
 
 Then Lucy knew that Laura Macauley was not 
 really fond of cats. It seemed hard that such a per- 
 son should have a succession of kittens, while she, 
 who loved them so, did not own even one. 
 
 Miss Macauley talked on general subjects for a 
 few minutes with such an ease of manner and flow 
 3
 
 34 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 of language that her visitor felt like an ill-informed 
 child. At last Lucy rose to go. 
 
 " You dear thing, I must put you down," and she 
 gave the fluffy head a regretful kiss. 
 
 " He does not want to leave you," said Miss Mac- 
 auley, who had been in despair as to finding a home 
 for this kitten, and now saw the chance of her life. 
 " I really must give him to you. Wait a minute," 
 she added, with the decision of a general to a pri- 
 vate, "I will get a basket and you can take him 
 home with you now." 
 
 " Oh," gasped Lucy, " I can't. What would 
 Letitia and Deborah say ? " 
 
 Miss Macauley had already left the room. Lucy 
 stood transfixed. The kitten was on her shoulder 
 now; his warm little face was nestling against her 
 cheek. 
 
 " What blue eyes you have, dear," she said ; " so 
 full of expression. It seems as if I must have you, 
 but I can't. And yet it would not be polite to steal 
 out of the house like a thief before Laura comes 
 back." 
 
 " Here is a basket, just the right size," said Miss 
 Macauley as she came back. " He won't get out," 
 and she put the kitten in and shut down the cover. 
 " Take him ; I am glad to give him to you," and 
 there was no ring of insincerity in her voice now. 
 
 Lucy's fingers closed on the handle of the basket
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 35 
 
 in a faltering way. " You are very kind, Laura ; 
 I appreciate your generosity, but I mustn't take 
 him," and she put her gift reluctantly down on the 
 sofa. " Dear, it breaks my heart to give you up, 
 but Letitia and Deborah " 
 
 " It is only fair that you should have your way 
 sometimes," Miss Macauley broke in. " If you want 
 a kitten there is no reason why you should not have 
 one. Miss Letitia is so fond of me she will be satis- 
 fied when she finds I have given him to you, and 
 Miss Deborah will be glad to have you pleased." 
 
 " If my sisters do not object, I will come for him 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Take him home with you now," Laura com- 
 manded, realizing that there was no time like the 
 present. " If you mind carrying the basket, I will 
 walk back with you and take it myself." 
 
 " I don't mind that in the least," said Lucy in a 
 flurried way. " I should be very sorry to give you 
 so much trouble." 
 
 Miss Macauley once more thrust the basket into 
 Lucy's hand, and followed her to the door. " Good- 
 by," she said. " I am sure you will enjoy the kit- 
 ten," and she walked into the house with the exhil- 
 arating sense of a victory won. 
 
 Lucy had not gone far before she met Mrs. Lut- 
 terworth, the minister's wife. Mrs. Lutterworth 
 was one of those persons who feel that they are born
 
 36 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 into this world to set other people right, and there 
 is always a wide field for this in a parish. 
 
 Another trait of hers was curiosity. She was 
 eager to know what Lucy Wyatt had in that cov- 
 ered basket. It seemed so incongruous, taken in 
 connection with her best gown and those spotless 
 gloves. 
 
 " You have evidently had a present," she haz- 
 arded. " Won't you let me carry that heavy basket 
 for you ? You look tired." 
 
 " No, thank you; it isn't heavy." 
 
 " I am going to play a game of twenty questions. 
 Is it animal, mineral, or vegetable? " 
 
 Before Lucy could reply, a round head answered 
 this question by pushing up the cover of the basket, 
 while a pair of blue eyes looked at Mrs. Lutterworth 
 in mild astonishment. 
 
 " Lucy .Wyatt ! .What on earth are you doing 
 with that kitten? "' 
 
 " Laura [Macauley would give him to me." 
 
 " That is just like Laura to foist off one of her 
 kittens on you. Lucy, you should have more 
 spirit.'' 
 
 " I am very fond of kittens. I am only wonder- 
 ing what Deborah and Letitia will say." 
 
 " Well, you are likely to find out pretty soon." 
 
 " I couldn't help taking it without seeming very 
 rude."
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 37 
 
 " You should have the courage to say ' no/ and 
 by the way, my dear, Mr. Lutterworth is determined 
 that you shall take Esther Norris's Sunday School 
 class; Bertha Hall has made a complete fiasco of 
 it." 
 
 " I think I have the courage to say ' no,' " said 
 Lucy, with a little smile. 
 
 " That is an entirely different matter. Ministers 
 and kittens are not in the same category," returned 
 Mrs. Lutterworth with a smile. " Mr. Lutterworth 
 will not take no for an answer. He expects you at 
 the vestry at half-past nine next Sunday. Lucy, if 
 you don't want that kitten, just open the basket and 
 let him out now. He is pretty enough to find a 
 good home, and the chances are he would run 
 straight to Laura Macauley, which would serve her 
 right." 
 
 Lucy put the kitten's head gently back. " I've 
 got him, and I am going to keep him," she said. 
 
 Her sisters were both out when Lucy reached 
 home. She took the kitten into the kitchen and 
 showed him to the cook, who had a heart for cats. 
 "Did you ever see such a pretty creature?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " He is a beauty, Miss Lucy. But what will Miss 
 Deborah say? Her that is so afraid of their catch- 
 ing birds." 
 
 " I am going to keep him in the attic next my
 
 38 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 room to-night. I don't dare tell my sisters, for fear 
 they will send him back. I brought him out for you 
 to give him his supper." 
 
 " Bless his dear heart ! " 
 
 Lucy and Bridget established the kitten in the 
 room on the third story that used to belong to Mary 
 Wyatt, more than thirty years ago, before she mar- 
 ried Amos Forsyth. It had been turned into a 
 store-room now, and was filled with trunks, barrels 
 of old letters, unsteady tables and highly colored 
 chromos. These inartistic, but appealing pictures, 
 had been sent into banishment by the decree of Miss 
 Letitia, to the regret of Miss Deborah and Lucy, 
 who were weak enough to love them from old as- 
 sociation. 
 
 Lucy had always preferred to keep her own old 
 room in the third story. Her sisters wondered why 
 she still climbed those winding stairs, when she 
 could have her choice of three good chambers on 
 the second floor, which was sadly empty now, but 
 no other room held the associations of her girlhood, 
 and no other windows commanded so friendly and 
 intimate a view of the tree-tops. It was a spotless 
 room, with a white Marseilles quilt on the bed, white 
 dimity curtains and a white frill on the washstand. 
 The furniture was chestnut, and had been made to 
 order for her, and given her by her father, on her 
 eighteenth birthday. Lilies were carved on the low
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 39 
 
 dressing-table and on the bed. Lucy had always re- 
 minded her father of a lily. In the chestnut book- 
 case were all the volumes she had loved in her child- 
 hood, the Lucy books, the Prudy books, Little Susy's 
 Six Birthdays, and, best of all, Alice's Adventures 
 in Wonderland, and Through the Looking-glass. 
 The last two had not been classics in her childhood, 
 but new books, about which there had been a di- 
 vision of opinion. Her grown-up sisters had 
 thought them too far-fetched. 
 
 " You dear thing," said Lucy, as she gave the 
 kitten a hug, " I hope you will be happy in the attic. 
 You are next door to me." 
 
 "Where on earth is that cat?" Miss Deborah 
 asked, later in the evening. 
 
 " I am sure I don't know," replied Miss Letitia. 
 
 Lucy bent her head guiltily over her embroidery. 
 
 " It sounds as if it were in this house, but of 
 course it can't be," said Miss Deborah. 
 
 " It is probably in the back yard," Miss Letitia 
 observed. " People are so selfish where their cats 
 are concerned. They never have the least considera- 
 tion for their neighbors." 
 
 Lucy stole upstairs and opened the door. Sud- 
 denly the piteous mews ceased, a soft head rubbed 
 against her, and a little voice gave a series of happy 
 purrs. Lucy passed an hour in her own room. She
 
 40 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 did not dare to stay any longer for fear of arousing 
 the suspicions of her sisters. 
 
 " Well, of all unsociable persons, you are the 
 most so," said Miss Letitia, when her sister came 
 downstairs at last. " What have you been about? " 
 
 " I had letters to write," said Lucy. This was 
 true enough, and she did not think it necessary to 
 add that she had not written them. 
 
 In the middle of the night those tell-tale mews 
 began again. Fortunately Lucy's sisters were good 
 sleepers, but nevertheless she was in constant dread 
 of their waking. At last she rose and opened the 
 attic door. A little furry being rubbed against her 
 bare feet in an ecstasy of joy. She stooped and 
 caught the kitten up in her arms. 
 
 " You shall spend the night with me, you dear, 
 fascinating, homesick little thing." 
 
 This was not so peaceful a proceeding as Lucy 
 had pictured, for the kitten proved to be of a wakeful 
 disposition. He ran up and down over the bed, and 
 every now and then would amuse himself by sharp- 
 ening his claws on her arms. 
 
 " What shall I do with you, you little mischief? 
 We are not either of us going to get a wink of sleep. 
 I wonder if you are not hungry? " 
 
 Lucy went into the attic to get the pitcher of 
 milk and the saucer that she had left there. She did 
 not light the candle, for she knew just where she
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 41 
 
 had put the pitcher, on the left-hand side of the man- 
 tel-piece. She reached out her hand for it and 
 stumbled over a picture that leaned insecurely 
 against a small table. Picture and table both fell 
 to the floor with a deafening crash. Lucy fled 
 guiltily into her own room and thrust the kitten 
 under the bedclothes awaiting developments. They 
 came presently in the shape of Miss Deborah, who 
 ran panting up the winding stairs. 
 
 " Lucy ! What on earth was that noise ? Are 
 you ill, child? " 
 
 " I'm all right, dear," said Lucy, feigning a sleepy 
 voice. 
 
 " Then there must be burglars in the house. Did 
 you hear that fearful noise? " 
 
 " Yes. I knocked something over." 
 
 " You knocked something over. What did you 
 knock over, you crazy child? Is it broken? " 
 
 " It is all right. Please go downstairs, dear, and 
 don't bother about me," she begged, for the kitten 
 was making frantic attempts to get his head above 
 the bedclothes. 
 
 " But I must know what fell," insisted Miss 
 Deborah, coming into Lucy's room. " Everything 
 looks all right. This is very mysterious. Are you 
 sure there is not someone in the house? " 
 
 " Perfectly sure. I tell you everything is all 
 right. Good-night, dear."
 
 42 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 It was at this moment that the kitten, enraged at 
 being kept so long under the bedclothes, dug his 
 claws into Lucy's arms and uttered a piercing 
 '' miau." 
 
 " Lucy Wyatt," said Miss Deborah, the truth 
 flashing upon her, " have you got a kitten here in 
 this room ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Where did you get it ? And how long have you 
 had it?" 
 
 " Since five o'clock this afternoon. I was going 
 to tell you to-morrow. Laura Macauley insisted 
 upon giving him to me. I told her you wouldn't 
 like it." 
 
 " Like it ! Well, I should think not. To-morrow 
 morning you can have the pleasure of taking the 
 kitten back to Laura Macauley with my best compli- 
 ments. 
 
 By way of answer Lucy caught up her pet and 
 kissed him passionately. Her long golden hair fell 
 around her worn and faded face as she held the 
 little creature up in mute supplication. 
 
 " I simply cannot give him back, he is so sweet," 
 she said. 
 
 Miss Deborah was touched. She had never been 
 able to realize that Lucy was a middle-aged woman. 
 And to-night, with her flowing hair, and the kitten 
 pressed close to her face, she seemed more than ever
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 43 
 
 like the little sister of the past, whom Miss Deborah 
 had felt it her duty to scold and train, but whom, 
 notwithstanding, she loved better than anyone in 
 the world. 
 
 " If only kittens wouldn't grow into cats," Miss 
 Deborah said, meditatively. " Lucy, I would do 
 anything in the world for you, if my principles were 
 not involved, but when he is a little older he will 
 catch birds. Now, I hold that birds have a far 
 more important place in the economy of nature than 
 cats." 
 
 " He won't be big enough to catch anything this 
 summer," said Lucy, eagerly. 
 
 " Then I am sure Letitia will seriously object. 
 She has always been firmly set against cats." 
 
 " She has had her way for a great many years." 
 
 " Then there are the Browns' and Simondses' 
 chickens. It would be a very unneighborly thing 
 for us to have a cat who might eat chickens." 
 
 " He won't eat them ; I'll train him." 
 
 " You train anything, child ? All the training 
 he got would have to come from me. No, Lucy, 
 I am very sorry to disappoint you, but he must go 
 back to Laura to-morrow morning. It will be easier 
 for you in the end." 
 
 " I can't take him back," said Lucy, in pathetic 
 tones. " I was feeling so lonely this afternoon, 
 thinking about old times, and when that dear little
 
 44 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 thing cuddled down in my lap and Laura gave him 
 to me, it seemed like a special providence. I have 
 had to give up one thing after another all my life," 
 she added, with a little break in her voice. 
 
 There was a moment of silence. Both women 
 were thinking of days long ago, when those empty 
 rooms were peopled with laughing inmates. 
 
 Miss Deborah brushed her hand hastily across her 
 eyes. 
 
 " Well, Lucy Wyatt," she said, " if a kitten can 
 be any comfort to you, for heaven's sake keep him. 
 I'll make it all right with Letitia." 
 
 " Bridget," said Miss Deborah the next morn- 
 ing, " you can bring in a plate for Mr. Gray. He 
 is going to take breakfast with us." 
 
 "Mr. Gray!" gasped Miss Letitia. "Who is 
 he? And why didn't you tell me before? " 
 
 " He has been staying at the Macauley's. He is 
 a great friend of Laura's." 
 
 " Then he is sure to be agreeable. I wish yon 
 had told me, though, and I would have put on my 
 white morning-gown." 
 
 Miss Deborah gave what would have been called 
 a chuckle had the sound issued from the lips of a 
 schoolboy. And just then Bridget came in with the 
 kitten tucked under one arm and a plate in the other 
 hand.
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 45 
 
 " My sister, Miss Wyatt, Mr. Gray," said Miss 
 Deborah, formally. 
 
 " Deborah, what tomfoolery is this? " demanded 
 Miss Letitia, drawing herself up with dignity. 
 
 " It is a kitten your friend, Laura Macauley, gave 
 to Lucy. Poor child, she was afraid to tell us last 
 night. I know we never meant to have a kitten, but 
 Lucy seems to have grown very much attached to 
 it already." 
 
 Mr. Gray looked about him for a minute; then 
 he gave a spring and nestled down confidingly in 
 Miss Letitia's lap. Lucy had not come down yet. 
 She was making up for her wakeful night. 
 
 Miss Letitia was a wise woman. Seeing that 
 the society of Mr. Gray was inevitable, she resolved 
 gracefully to make the best of a bad situation. 
 
 " He is a very pretty kitten for a kitten," she 
 admitted. 
 
 " How the Wyatts can make such fools of them- 
 selves over their cat passes my comprehension," 
 Mrs. Lutterworth said to Laura Macauley. This 
 was a year later, when Mr. Gray had become the 
 chief ruler of the family. " I actually met Deborah 
 coming home with a cat-basket for her precious 
 Mr. Gray to take his naps in it is such a crazy 
 name to give an animal, and they won't all go 
 away together and shut up the house, on account of
 
 46 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 the cat. I should like to lend them two or three of 
 my children. I fancy I should hear less about Mr. 
 Gray. It is astonishing how much time some people 
 have to waste." 
 
 " Poor Lucy seems to be out of it altogether, 
 now," said Laura Macauley. " I thought she was 
 going to have something for her exclusive property 
 at last, but Miss Deborah has taken complete pos- 
 session of the cat. The sun rises and sets in Mr. 
 Gray for her." 
 
 As the season went on, Mr. Gray showed new 
 powers. Miss Deborah had been right in her expec- 
 tations. To the consternation of gentle Miss Lucy, 
 this second summer of his life he developed into a 
 mighty hunter. 
 
 The first time that she saw him with a young 
 robin Lucy experienced the pangs of an aunt whose 
 favorite nephew has taken to disgraceful courses. 
 
 " Dear, you mustn't eat such things, they are 
 God's creatures," she informed him, " and have a 
 right to their life just as much as you have to yours. 
 1 1 is naughty, naughty, naughty. I shall have to 
 punish you," and with averted face, she struck him 
 two nervous, unsteady blows. 
 
 Mr. Gray looked at her with indescribable dig- 
 nity, then he turned his back on her, and took refuge 
 with Miss Deborah, on the other side of the room. 
 
 " Lucy, I am surprised at you," said her sister.
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 47 
 
 " Why should poor, dear Mr. Gray know that God's 
 creatures, the robins, are any more sacred than 
 mice ? Lucy, do you suppose if you had always been 
 taught that it was a praiseworthy act for you to 
 catch and eat mice you would know by instinct that 
 it was a terrible crime to kill a robin? Come here, 
 darling. Come to your old auntie. Another time, 
 dear, we will not catch the pretty robins, but this 
 time, love, you did not know it was wrong." 
 
 For some reason best known to himself, Mr. 
 Gray could never learn that it was wrong. Lucy 
 gave up punishing him after a time, for she found 
 it only made him turn against her and devote him- 
 self to her more indulgent sisters. And there came 
 an unhappy moment when she was grateful if it 
 was nothing worse than robins, for in the middle of 
 the summer he learned the taste of young chickens. 
 
 " Dear," said Lucy to her sister Deborah, " I am 
 really afraid we shall have to chain up Mr. Gray in 
 the yard, for this is the second time Walter Brown 
 has been over and complained that he has eaten one 
 of their chickens." 
 
 " Chain up Mr. Gray! Lucy, I am surprised at 
 you. How would you like to be chained up in the 
 yard simply because you were fond of spring 
 chicken? You should learn to do as you would be 
 done by," Miss Deborah said with a gleam of merri- 
 ment in her eyes.
 
 48 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " That is just what I am thinking. Suppose it 
 was our chickens and their cat? " 
 
 " People who try to keep chickens in the middle 
 of a country town must take the consequences." 
 
 " Don't you remember how you used to feel be- 
 fore we had a cat? " Lucy ventured. " You thought 
 it was disgraceful for people to let their animals 
 run riot ? " 
 
 " That is a very different matter. Mr. Gray 
 merely goes out for a little exercise." 
 
 " You know I promised to train him ? " Lucy sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " My dear, when you propose to punish a fellow- 
 creature for doing what he considers his duty, then 
 I think it is time for me to step in and interfere. 
 Mr. Gray always lives up to his lights. Come here, 
 dearest," and she gathered him up in her arms; 
 " come to the friend who never misunderstands 
 you." 
 
 " It does seem as if I might punish my own cat 
 when I see fit," Lucy thought. " I hoped, when they 
 neither of them wanted a cat, that he could be mine, 
 all mine. And yet how absurd it is for me to be 
 jealous, yes, I am jealous, that is the ugly name 
 for the feeling, because a gray cat loves Deborah 
 best. Dear Deborah, I ought to be glad." 
 
 When it was not only the Browns who com-
 
 The Conversion of Miss Deborah 49 
 
 plained, but also the Wyatts' good friends, the 
 Simondses, Lucy felt that she must interfere, no 
 matter what it cost her. 
 
 Frances Simonds came over one morning 1 and 
 said, " I am very sorry, Miss Lucy, but it has hap- 
 pened again." 
 
 " Then I will certainly see that he is chained up 
 in the yard." 
 
 Just then Miss Deborah came in. 
 
 " Frances says Mr. Gray has been eating their 
 chickens again," said Lucy, " and I have told her 
 I will see that he is chained up in the yard." 
 
 " I am by no means sure that Mr. Gray has eaten 
 any chickens," Miss Deborah remarked with dignity. 
 " I never saw him eat one. Are you sure it wasn't 
 a mouse, Frances? He's very fond of mice." 
 
 " I am sure it wasn't a mouse. It was yellow and 
 downy." 
 
 " It may have been a bird," said Miss Deborah. 
 " I regret to state there is something about his moral 
 nature which makes it impossible for us to convince 
 him it is wrong to eat birds." 
 
 " It wasn't a bird," said Frances shortly. " It 
 was one of our yellow chickens. I know it, because 
 I saw it in his mouth, and besides, I counted; there 
 were thirty yesterday, and now there are only 
 twenty-nine."
 
 50 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Well, Frances Simonds," said Miss Deborah, 
 cornered at last, " if you have thirty chickens, I do 
 not think you need grudge one to poor, dear Mr. 
 Gray."
 
 MR. GRAY'S RIVAL
 
 Ill 
 
 MR. GRAY'S RIVAL 
 
 THE arrival of the Monday evening mail was 
 the chief event of the week to the Miss 
 Wyatts because it brought the New York 
 letters. From the time that Mary Wyatt had be- 
 come Mrs. Amos Forsyth, until just before her 
 death, more than thirty years later, there had never 
 been a break in the correspondence, save when the 
 sisters were together. At last there had come an 
 anxious Monday evening when no letter reached 
 them, and later a few hurried lines from Mary's son 
 John, with whom she had lived since his wife's 
 death, telling of the illness of his mother, then a tele- 
 gram saying that all was over, and finally that deso- 
 lating gap that can never be bridged. 
 
 When the three sisters went on to the funeral. 
 John begged that one of them would make her home 
 with him and his children. Miss Letitia, the oldest 
 sister, who had always been tenderly cherished on 
 account of her beauty, and intellect, an.d her sensitive 
 
 S3
 
 54 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 nerves, could hardly be expected to begin to take 
 care of other people at the age of fifty-six; Lucy, 
 John's favorite aunt, who seemed more like his 
 older sister, would have been only too thankful to 
 stay, but she had a lack of experience in house-keep- 
 ing, joined to the timidity that was the result of 
 an abortive life, therefore it was John's aunt Deb- 
 orah who stayed with him for a few weeks, making 
 herself loved by her breezy cheerfulness, in spite of 
 the occasional drastic tenor of her remarks. As 
 she was the main prop of the household at home she 
 could not be spared long, but she found an honest, 
 capable woman to keep house for John, whom every 
 reasonable person ought to have liked. It was cer- 
 tainly not Miss Deborah's fault that those spoiled 
 children could not bear the house-keeper. So the 
 arrangement ended with the winter, and the next 
 summer John and the twins came to stay with 
 his aunts, and, as an unexpected result, he married 
 eighteen-year-old Esther Norris. It was two years 
 and a half since that October morning when John 
 and Esther drove away between the rows of flaming 
 maples, into a new world, and even Miss Deborah 
 had been forced to admit that the marriage had 
 turned out unexpectedly well. She stayed with 
 them one summer at the sea-shore (each sister 
 took her turn) and she was completely won over by 
 Esther's charms. It was Esther who suggested that
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 55 
 
 the habit of Sunday letter-writing should be re- 
 sumed, and that John and the two children should 
 each write one letter a month to their aunts, while 
 she took the fourth Sunday. And so life had gone 
 on, and while the old gap could never be filled, new in- 
 terests and dear new faces were crowding in, for there 
 was a baby now in the Forsyth household, a little 
 Mary, named for that other Mary, who had written 
 about John's babyhood more than thirty years ago. 
 
 " I suppose you have a letter for me," said Miss 
 Letitia, as Lucy came in with the Monday evening 
 mail. 
 
 " It is for Deborah this time." 
 
 " That is very strange. It is John's turn to write 
 to me." 
 
 Miss Deborah opened her letter and gave an ex- 
 clamation of surprise. 
 
 " I hope there is not any bad news ? " Lucy asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " No. They are all well. John is proposing to 
 bring all the family on to spend the summer with 
 us." 
 
 " Upon my word, that is cool ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Letitia. " It is very strange he did not write to me 
 when it is my turn, and I am the oldest," she 
 added. 
 
 " I suppose he wrote to me because I am house- 
 keeper. You can answer the letter, if you like."
 
 56 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " I have enough letters of my own to answer, 
 thank you. I should think Esther would have the 
 sense to see that it may not be convenient for us to 
 have two grown people and two children and a nurse 
 and baby, to spend the summer." 
 
 " She has," and Miss Deborah read an extract 
 from the letter. 
 
 " Esther tells me we are altogether too big a fam- 
 ily now to inflict on you, and as her father's house 
 is not large enough to receive us, she proposes our 
 going to Mrs. Homer Newhall's boarding-house, 
 but I told her my aunts would feel deeply hurt if we 
 didn't come to them. Of course, if for any reason 
 if is not convenient, you will let us know frankly. 
 I long to have you all see Mary. She is beginning 
 to walk and take notice, and yesterday she electri- 
 fied me by saying ' papa.' " 
 
 " John is a perfect fool over that child," Miss 
 Deborah observed. " Mary is thirteen months old, 
 and ought to have said ' papa ' weeks ago ; Lucy said 
 ' papa ' and ' mamma ' when she was nine months 
 old, and John himself and boys are not usually so 
 forward as girls began to talk when he was " 
 
 " For heaven's sake spare us those reminiscences," 
 said Miss Letitia. " What are you going to write 
 to John?" 
 
 " Oh, I suppose they will have to come ; but what 
 on earth we can do about Mr. Gray I don't see.
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 57 
 
 Jack and Lily will tease him outrageously, poor 
 creature, and he is used to such a placid life." 
 
 " I declare, Deborah, I believe you put the cat's 
 comfort before that of your own family. / am used 
 to a placid life too," Miss Letitia remarked. 
 
 " You can protect yourself. If the baby were 
 only a little younger I shouldn't mind so much, but 
 as soon as a child is big enough to walk it is big 
 enough to get into every kind of mischief. Dear, 
 fascinating little thing! I long to see her, but I 
 would rather see her at the distance of Mrs. New- 
 hall's boarding-house." 
 
 " Then why don't you have the courage of your 
 convictions and say so to John? " 
 
 " Letitia ! " Lucy cried reproachfully. " You 
 wouldn't have the heart to let them go to a boarding- 
 house when we have four spare-rooms! " 
 
 " We can manage the room well enough," said 
 Miss Deborah. " We can give them the three south 
 rooms opening together." 
 
 " So you are planning to have me move out of my 
 room? " Miss Letitia asked. 
 
 " Why, I thought you could move into mine, and 
 I would take the little room. It would be so much 
 more comfortable for them to have connecting rooms 
 and an open fire." 
 
 Miss Deborah had known her sister for more 
 than fifty years, and her faith in the inherent unself-
 
 58 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 ishness of human nature was so great that she could 
 still make a proposition of this kind. 
 
 " Letitia would never be happy in any room but 
 her own," said Lucy, who had knocked her head 
 against her sister's limitations too often not to 
 recognize them. " It is no matter if they don't have 
 connecting rooms. The nurse and the baby can be 
 across the hall." 
 
 " I am very sorry about poor, dear Mr. Gray," 
 said Miss Deborah, reverting to her pet. " I know 
 that naughty baby will pull his tail and make him 
 very unhappy, and as for Jack and Lily " 
 
 " John is a dear fellow," Miss Letitia interrupted, 
 " but, like all men, he is selfish. It never occurs to 
 him to look at things from any point of view but his 
 own." 
 
 They were coming, actually coming at last. Miss 
 Deborah had gone to the station to meet them, and 
 Miss Letitia and Lucy were waiting in the parlor, 
 which was gay with a wealth of roses arranged in 
 bowls and vases by Lucy's skilful fingers. It was 
 not often that she was allowed to follow her own 
 taste entirely, even in small things, but the others 
 had been so busy with larger decisions that they had 
 left the cutting and arranging of the flowers to 
 her. 
 
 " My dear, you have a real genius for fixing
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 59 
 
 flowers," said Miss Letitia. She always recognized 
 perfection when she saw it, but her praise was given 
 sc rarely that her words brought a glow to Lucy's 
 heart. ' 
 
 At last there was the sound of wheels on the 
 gravel, then came a gay laugh and a shrill voice 
 called out, " Mr. Gray ! What an awfully funny 
 name for him. I thought he was a person when 
 Aunt Lucy wrote about him first. Hi! Mr. Gray, 
 you needn't be so scared of me. Hullo, Aunt 
 Lucy ! " and Jack rushed into the room, closely fol- 
 lowed by his sister Lily. Next came John, carry- 
 ing the baby with patriarchal pride, then Esther, 
 rosy and happy, with a light in her eyes that made 
 the whole world seem a brighter place, and finally 
 the nurse. 
 
 " How good it is to be here again," said John, 
 after he had greeted his aunts. 
 
 " Let me take Mary," Lucy begged. Having a 
 baby in the house for two long months was a most 
 delightful prospect. 
 
 Mary looked at her steadily for a moment with 
 blue eyes that had something of the mystery and un- 
 fathomable quality of the sea. Then she put out 
 her hands to go to her aunt Lucy. 
 
 " Dear little girl," said Lucy, taking her on her 
 lap and giving her a kiss. 
 
 " Lucy, you mustn't kiss the baby; it isn't good
 
 60 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 for her," Deborah said warning-ly. " And you hold 
 her as if you thought she was going to break." 
 
 " My baby isn't brittle," Esther returned gaily. 
 
 Lucy looked at the mother's bright face. " There 
 is such a thing as happiness in the world," she 
 thought. 
 
 After the Forsyths had gone to their rooms to get 
 ready for tea, Miss Letitia said : " Jack has grown a 
 great deal. He is much more of a boy than he was. 
 I foresee we shall have trouble with him." 
 
 To which Miss Deborah replied, " Yes, I am sorry 
 he is so rough. I don't know what we shall do with 
 Mr. Gray." 
 
 " It is even worse than I expected," confessed 
 Miss Letitia. " Lily is less quiet too. I don't know 
 how I am going to stand the noise. I don't know 
 what Esther's nerves are made of. I am thankful 
 I never married." 
 
 " I am glad I never did. I thank heaven every 
 day of my life that I haven't a husband," declared 
 Miss Deborah. 
 
 Lucy said nothing. Was Letitia, who had been 
 the beauty and belle of Eppingham in her youth, 
 really satisfied with her unstimulating life of indo- 
 lence of body, joined to gentle activity of mind? 
 Was this what it meant to have ceased to be young ? 
 Should she herself, in the years to come, learn to be 
 contented with her life of trifles ? Would there ever
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 61 
 
 be a time when she would not look with envious eyes 
 at the women who, like Esther, had the fuller life, 
 with its greater cares but higher happiness? Deborah 
 seemed satisfied too, but hers was the content of the 
 active woman who fills every hour with loving, if 
 sometimes mistaken, service. They both seemed 
 happy with what they had and to crave nothing 
 more. Was it because they had chosen their own 
 lives, while she had been refused the choice ? How 
 strange that this noisy inroad of life from the larger 
 world, that filled her with such a keen sensation of 
 joy, should be merely tolerated by them! 
 
 "Lucy, have you seen the cat?" Miss Deborah 
 asked two evenings later. 
 
 " No. Didn't you bring him in? " 
 
 " Of course I did. I took him out for a little 
 exercise, as usual, and then I chained him up in the 
 yard. I do wish the Simondses would keep their 
 chickens in the cellar, it would make life so much 
 simpler for us," she said, with the gleam of humor 
 in her eyes that always accompanied an especially 
 preposterous remark. " Then I brought him in and 
 put him in the kitchen, as I always do. And now 
 I can't find him. Children," as Jack and Lily came 
 rushing into the room, " have you seen Mr. Gray? " 
 
 " I let him out," said Jack. 
 
 " You let him out! You naughty boy! He will
 
 62 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 stay out all night, and probably be chewed up by 
 a bigger cat. Oh, my dear, dear Mr. Gray ! Jack, 
 didn't you know you were very naughty? " 
 
 " He seemed to want to get out awfully, Aunt 
 Deborah. He was mewing like fury. I didn't know 
 it was naughty, truly I didn't. He is awfully brave, 
 Aunt Deborah, I guess he'll do most of the chewing 
 up." 
 
 " I suppose he'll eat about a dozen of the Si- 
 mondses' chickens," she said grimly. " If you had 
 only waited until I had given him his supper ! But 
 he is as hungry as a hawk. Well, the only thing 
 we can do now is to go out and see if we can find 
 him." 
 
 They made an imposing procession as they set 
 forth, Miss Deborah and Lucy in the rear, while 
 Lily and Jack dashed madly forward. 
 
 " What is the matter? " called Miss Letitia from 
 the window, and when she was told she, too, de- 
 scended into the arena. Bridget joined them with a 
 saucer of milk in her hand, while John and Esther, 
 who were just returning from a walk, increased the 
 numbers of the search party. Alas! Nothing was 
 to be seen of Mr. Gray in the Wyatts' premises, 
 so they proceeded to their next-door neighbor's 
 house. 
 
 Frances Simonds was sitting on the back piazza. 
 sewing, when they approached.
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 63 
 
 " How delightful this is ! " she exclaimed, think- 
 ing they had come for an afternoon call. Bridget 
 was in the background, and Frances had not caught 
 sight of her and the saucer of milk. 
 
 " We are looking for Mr. Gray," Miss Deborah 
 explained. " By an accident " this was generous 
 of her " he got out of the kitchen " 
 
 " I let him out," said Jack, who liked the glory of 
 the exploit. " He was mewing awfully, and I 
 thought he would be happier " 
 
 " Goodness ! " said Frances, rising hastily, " I 
 hope he hasn't caught any of our chickens." 
 
 The chickens were safe, which seemed to prove 
 that Mr. Gray's evening stroll had been taken in the 
 opposite direction, so the little company changed its 
 course. Most of the party returned discouraged to 
 the house, but Miss Deborah and the children faith- 
 fully hunted far and near, but although some persons 
 went so far as to say they had seen a gray cat, no one 
 had any definite news to give, and gray cats were 
 plentiful in the neighborhood. 
 
 " I declare," said Miss Deborah that evening, " I 
 feel as badly as if Mr. Gray were a person, worse, 
 for people know when they are doing wrong. To 
 think of that poor, dear creature out all night. He 
 has never been out a single night in his life, bless 
 his dear heart." 
 
 " It is beginning to rain. I had a presentiment
 
 64 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 that there would be trouble if the Forsyths came on 
 this summer," said Miss Letitia ominously. 
 
 Miss Letitia went to bed and slept the sleep of the 
 just, Lucy worried a great deal and woke several 
 times in the night, while Miss Deborah sat up until 
 after twelve o'clock, hoping in vain for the prod- 
 igal's return. When she at last went to bed her 
 sleep was broken by troubled dreams. At five 
 o'clock in the morning she was wakened by heart- 
 piercing mews. She rose hastily and joyfully let 
 Mr. Gray in at the door that opened on the upper 
 piazza. He looked humbled and chastened. One 
 ear had received a wound, and his poor fur was 
 draggled by the rain. 
 
 " Dear boy," she said catching him up in her arms, 
 '" your old auntie has been breaking her heart over 
 you. Life would be a dreary affair without my 
 darling boy. You are worth a dozen baby Marys, 
 do you hear ? Lucy can make a fool of herself over 
 that child if she likes, but I am constant to my old 
 friends. Poor dear creature, to have his precious 
 ear torn! You can never tell me about the fright 
 and horror of this dreadful night. And I know you 
 have been jealous of the baby, dear. What do I 
 care about babies ? " 
 
 Lucy had heard the mews. She went quickly 
 downstairs and arrived in time to hear the greater 
 part of her sister's speech. " If she will only keep
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 65 
 
 on feeling so ! " she thought. " Mr. Gray is a per- 
 fect dear for a cat he is a great deal better than 
 nothing, but the baby is worth a dozen Mr. Grays! " 
 
 To steal upstairs to the nursery, to sit on the floor 
 by the hour together with baby Mary, to hand her 
 a spool of thread or a rattle, merely to have her 
 drop it with laughing glee, in order that her de- 
 voted relative might pick it up, to repeat this per- 
 formance over and over again, was the greatest 
 happiness Lucy had known for years. 
 
 " Lucy, you must make a stand, or you will be im- 
 posed on," Miss Deborah informed her a few days 
 later. " Esther is a dear child, but it isn't in human- 
 nature not to take advantage of a bridge over a 
 stream, when you want to go across, even if the 
 bridge is made by the prostrate body of a devoted 
 relative. Esther had much better stay at home and 
 look after her own baby. "There is no occasion for 
 her seeing so much of her girl friends, and she and 
 John have surely been married long enough not to 
 need so many tete-a-tete drives." 
 
 " But I love to take care of the baby, and Esther 
 knows she is giving me the greatest possible hap- 
 piness in letting me do it. Nora takes all the re- 
 sponsibility. I am delighted to give Esther a little 
 rest. And as for the drives, just think how many 
 times John and Esther have taken two of us with 
 them. I am sure they are most considerate." 
 5
 
 66 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Oh, I suppose they are as considerate as you can 
 expect two such heedless young things to be. The 
 modern parent is a profound mystery to me. In my 
 day people took all the care of their babies, or else 
 the bigger children looked after the little ones. 
 Many a time I have trundled you about in your 
 baby-carriage when I was longing to play ' Hi-spy ' 
 with Letitia and the other girls." 
 
 " It was a shame. I wish mother could have 
 afforded a nursery-maid." 
 
 That evening as the Wyatts were sitting around 
 their cheerful tea-table, they heard shrieks issuing 
 from the baby's room, as Esther came out and shut 
 the door. John was taking tea with his classmate, 
 Ned Simonds, and it was Nora's evening out. Her 
 evenings out, by the way, were of frequent occur- 
 rence, for she was a young thing and needed diver- 
 sion. 
 
 The sisters looked at each other for a moment in 
 a silence too shocked for words. At last Miss 
 Letitia said, " Do you suppose she is going to leave 
 that child crying like that? " 
 
 " It does not seem possible," said Miss Deborah. 
 
 Presently Esther came gaily into the room. She 
 had been playing tennis, and had come home just in 
 time to give the baby her supper and put her to bed. 
 Esther had on her bicycle skirt, and her pretty hair 
 was curling in little rings around her face, while the
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 67 
 
 exercise had given her a color even brighter than 
 usual. 
 
 " I'm awfully sorry to be late, Aunt Deborah," 
 she said. " We were having a most exciting tennis 
 match ; John and I played against Frances and Ned 
 Simonds, and we beat them, although we did it by 
 the skin of our teeth. I thought that was doing 
 pretty well for a humdrum pair from New York 
 city. I didn't have time to do my hair, or change 
 my dress. I will after tea. Oh, do you mind ? " 
 she added, noticing the gathering cloud on the faces 
 of her aunts. 
 
 " I am wondering how you can leave that poor 
 child screaming, upstairs," Miss Deborah said. 
 
 Esther laughed. " It is nothing but temper. She 
 didn't want me to come downstairs ; the doctor told 
 me not to humor her," she added, as she helped her- 
 self to tomato salad. " If I had stayed with her to- 
 night, she would howl like that every evening when 
 we leave her. Poor little soul, it seemed very hard- 
 hearted to come off; but she'll get over it in a 
 minute." 
 
 Lucy wondered how any mother could take those 
 heart-breaking screams so calmly, Miss Deborah felt 
 indignant, and Miss Letitia was driven nearly 
 frantic by the noise. 
 
 " Don't you think somebody had better go up- 
 stairs and stop her ? " she asked. " I have had a
 
 68 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 bad headache all day, and although I dare say the 
 discipline of leaving her alone may be good for her, 
 it is just a little hard on me." 
 
 " Oh, you poor dear," said Esther, looking re- 
 gretfully at her salad, " 1 never thought of that. 
 I'll go right up myself," and she rose hastily. 
 
 " Let me go," Lucy entreated. " I have finished 
 my supper." 
 
 " Lucy, you haven't eaten enough to keep a bird 
 alive," said Miss Deborah reproachfully. " Let 
 Esther manage her own baby." 
 
 Lucy gently pushed Esther back into her seat. 
 " I would like to go to her," she said. 
 
 She ran swiftly upstairs. Mary was already cry- 
 ing less violently. Her rage had given way to grief. 
 If she had the Forsyth temper, she had also inherited 
 the Norris disposition to make the best of things. 
 She was sitting up in her crib and her two dimpled 
 hands were put helplessly up to her rosy face, while 
 the tears stood in her reproachful blue eyes. 
 
 " You darling," Lucy cried, catching her up and 
 kissing her with passionate tenderness. " You little 
 dear. Come to Aunt Lucy, come, dear, dear baby, 
 and we'll, ' Ride a cock horse to Banbury Cross.' " 
 
 The baby was much pleased with this invitation, 
 and subsequent events proved that she was not too 
 young to learn the lesson of cause and effect. When 
 she was in New York she cried in vain, nobody in-
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 69 
 
 vaded her solitude, but here it required only a few 
 screams to bring a kind, yellow-haired lady with a 
 gently rustling gown, who took her out of her 
 wretched crib, and danced her on her knees, and this 
 friendly Aunt Lucy would stay until she was fairly 
 asleep, and it was much more sociable. Then there 
 was one never-to-be-forgotten evening when the 
 yellow-haired aunt was very tired, and the short, 
 stout aunt came upstairs in her place. 
 
 " Lucy," Miss Deborah had said, " you are getting 
 perfectly worn out with the vagaries of that imp of 
 a child. John and Esther ought not to have gone 
 out to tea when Nora was out too. No, you shall 
 not get off that sofa, I forbid it. I'll go up to Mary. 
 I can make her behave herself in two minutes." 
 
 Lucy looked at the clock, and became more and 
 more jealous as the time passed and her sister did 
 not come down. Ten minutes went by, quarter of 
 an hour, twenty minutes, it was a shame, baby Mary 
 would get to love Deborah best, people, as well as 
 cats, always did sooner or later, and no wonder, 
 Lucy was obliged to own with a remorseful sigh. 
 There never was a more unselfish, spontaneous, 
 whole-souled woman than her sister Deborah. 
 
 Miss Deborah, meanwhile, had approached the 
 baby with feelings of exasperation. Of course Lucy 
 had spoiled the child. Lucy always did spoil every- 
 body. If no one had gone up to Mary that first
 
 70 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 evening no one need ever have gone. Esther had 
 been right, she knew the characteristics of her child 
 better than they did, but the mischief had been done, 
 and now it was for her, Deborah Wyatt, to dis- 
 cipline this small piece of humanity, as she had dis- 
 ciplined the baby's grandmother and her great-aunt 
 Lucy. 
 
 " Well, Mary Forsyth," she began, as she entered 
 the nursery, " this is a pretty piece of business ! To 
 keep three quiet maiden-ladies in a stew like this 
 every evening. Either you howl until your aunt 
 Letitia is ready for the ' Nervine,' or else your poor 
 aunt Lucy, dear, delicate child, has to spend her 
 evening with you. I am positively ashamed of you. 
 You are a disgrace to the family. Do you hear? " 
 
 Baby Mary heard. How much she understood it 
 were difficult to say, but she stopped crying and fast- 
 ened her blue eyes on the rosy face of her aunt with 
 a fascinated gaze. The next moment she electrified 
 her by saying, " Debba." 
 
 " Oh, the darling child," cried Miss Deborah. 
 " She is trying to say my name, and she hasn't once 
 tried to say ' Lucy ' or ' Letitia.' The dear, pre- 
 cious, amusing little monkey! Dear baby, you must 
 go to sleep, but I don't get up to the nursery very 
 often, so first I'll say ' Robert Barnes, fellow fine/ 
 to you, once, only once, remember," and she lifted 
 her out of the crib.
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 71 
 
 Miss Deborah sat down in the low chair, and turn- 
 ing up one tiny soft pink foot she patted it vigor- 
 ously as she repeated the childish classic. When it 
 came to 
 
 ' ' Here a nail and there a prod ; 
 Now good Sir, your horse is shod," 
 
 she pinched the little foot with a will and tossed it 
 vigorously in the air. Mary was delighted. She 
 laughed uproariously, and put out the other little 
 foot invitingly. 
 
 " Well, just once more," said Miss Deborah. 
 
 At the end of the second performance the baby 
 put out her right foot again. 
 
 " You little monkey," said her aunt. " No more, 
 positively no more." 
 
 Mary looked thoughtful, then she put out her 
 left foot, and in accents that would have melted a 
 heart of stone she said, " Debba." 
 
 When Miss Deborah at last went downstairs her 
 face wore the noncommittal look of a person who 
 does not wish to be questioned. 
 
 " Have you seen the evening paper? " she asked 
 Lucy. 
 
 " Letitia had it a moment ago. She has just gone 
 upstairs to get her embroidery. What kept you 
 so long?" Lucy inquired after a moment's silence. 
 
 "Was I long?" Miss Deborah demanded with
 
 72 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 candid innocence. " Mary was a little restless. It 
 took longer to quiet her than I expected." 
 
 It was in vain for Miss Deborah to try to keep her 
 new relations with the baby a secret, for that young 
 person gave the situation away, the very next morn- 
 ing. When she was brought downstairs and her 
 aunt Lucy was going to take her, as usual, she 
 shook her head, and looking past her to the sprightly 
 aunt who was knitting the red stripe of an afghan, 
 she said, " Debba." 
 
 " So you taught her to say your name last night? " 
 Lucy asked, with that stab at the heart with which 
 she was only too familiar. 
 
 " I didn't. Honestly I didn't. The witch sud- 
 denly said, ' Debba,' out of the whole cloth. I 
 couldn't have been more startled if the gilt cock on 
 the Browns' stable were to begin to crow. The 
 monkey looks so small, and as if her mind were just 
 a vacant sheet of paper. Say ' Lucy,' dear. That 
 is a much prettier name. ' Lucy, Lucy.' " 
 
 " Debba." 
 
 " No, ' Lucy.' " 
 
 " Debba." 
 
 Mary laughed. The Wyatt sense of humor had 
 evidently been transmitted to her. 
 
 "You are an ungrateful little wretch. Aunt 
 Lucy is the person who is a slave to you." 
 
 " Debba," and she put out her foot.
 
 Mr. Gray's Rival 73 
 
 " Oh, you want me to say, ' Robert Barnes, fel- 
 low fine/ do you ? I know a great many nicer things 
 than that. If I am to be manager of a theatre I 
 will at least have a variety in the plays," and taking 
 the baby in her lap Miss Deborah began, " This lit- 
 the pig went to market, this little pig stayed at 
 home," and so on down the line of Mary's small 
 fingers. 
 
 " I am so glad we came on this summer," Esther 
 confided to her husband a fortnight later. " I 
 was afraid the baby would be too much for your 
 aunts. They were used to the other children, and 
 knew what to expect, but the baby was an unknown 
 quantity. I didn't think Aunt Deborah would be so 
 devoted to her." 
 
 " That was only because you didn't know Aunt 
 Deborah." 
 
 " Well, I know her now. I used to be afraid of 
 her, before I was married, but she is the dearest old 
 thing in the world. I declare she grows younger 
 every day. Before long she " 
 
 " You see I was right in vetoing your proposition 
 to go to a boarding-house," John broke in. " It 
 seemed a pity that three ladies with such a wealth 
 of affection should lavish it all on a cat." 
 
 Mr. Gray, w ; ho was lying on the hearth-rug, 
 looked as if he had his own views on this subject. 
 
 " Poor old fellow," said Esther, taking the cat
 
 74 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 up in her arms, " don't mind what John says. He 
 is nothing but a clumsy man. You are nicer than 
 he is in ever so many ways. You never interrupt, 
 and you always let me have the last word." 
 
 " And in this case the last word is that the 
 baby " John began. 
 
 " Is even nicer than Mr. Gray," she finished.
 
 THE NEWHALL FARM
 
 IV 
 
 THE NEWHALL FARM 
 
 " T UCY, if it doesn't rain tomorrow, will you 
 
 I j go to the Newhall farm with me to buy a 
 cow?" Miss Deborah asked. 
 
 The Newhall farm brought up such a host of 
 memories to Lucy that she was silent for a moment, 
 half-longing, half-dreading to accept the invitation. 
 
 "Won't Letitia go with you?" she inquired. 
 
 " Letitia ! Letitia would never be satisfied with 
 any cow that walks this earth, unless it gave twenty- 
 four quarts of milk a day, half cream, and had un- 
 rivaled beauty into the bargain. No, thank you. 
 I have taken Letitia's advice too often. She would 
 want to drive all around the country to a dozen 
 farms, and see twenty cows, before she decided, 
 and it would end in our not getting any, or making 
 a Hobson's choice just as the baby was leaving, and 
 as I am investing in a cow so that Mary can have 
 pure milk, I'd rather get it while she's here, espe- 
 
 77
 
 78 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 cially as I'm buying the animal with John's money. 
 I thought we would take our tea with us." 
 
 " If we are going to have a picnic the children will 
 enjoy coming too." 
 
 " No, thank you. The children are all very well 
 in their way, but I want my ' afternoon out,' and I 
 should like your company." 
 
 " I don't know anything about cows," Lucy ob- 
 jected. 
 
 " Neither do I, but old Peter Newhall is an hon- 
 est ' soul. He would never palm off an inferior 
 cow on me." 
 
 On the rare occasions when Deborah and Lucy 
 went anywhere without Letitia, there was a certain 
 freedom, a childishness in their joy of which they 
 were half ashamed. They had to go through the 
 form of asking her to take the drive with them, for 
 otherwise her feelings would have been hurt. 
 
 " Letitia," Deborah said, " do you care to go to 
 the Newhall farm with Lucy and me to-morrow? 
 I am meaning to buy my cow there." 
 
 " Why do you take that long drive ? There 
 must be good cows nearer home." 
 
 " Lucy and I don't mind the drive. We shall 
 make it easy by taking our supper with us and eating 
 it under a tree." 
 
 There was a wicked gleam in Miss Deborah's 
 eyes as she made this statement.
 
 The Newhall Farm 79 
 
 " If there is one thing I dislike more than an- 
 other it is eating out of doors," Miss Letitia re- 
 turned. " I have no fondness for gypsy ways, 
 and then it has rained so hard the grass will be damp, 
 and lastly, I am not partial to ants." 
 
 And so it happened that Miss Deborah and Lucy 
 started off the next afternoon in a buggy. It may 
 have been selfish, Miss Deborah was perfectly 
 willing to admit that it was, when she saw Lily and 
 Jack eying the vehicle and the lunch-basket with 
 wistful eyes, but the children had already partici- 
 pated in four picnics, and it was still early in July. 
 This afternoon, as they drove through the village, 
 Lucy's heart was as light as if she had not fallen a 
 victim to Deborah's stronger will, and her sense 
 of injury, which was all the more poignant, because 
 unexpressed, was lulled to sleep. There was an 
 especial congeniality between the two sisters, in 
 spite of a lack of comprehension. Lucy's gentle- 
 ness and exquisite refinement gave Deborah the 
 keenest pleasure, while Deborah's humor and her 
 practical point of view were as refreshing as a tonic 
 to her more sensitively organized sister. To-day 
 Lucy was captivated anew by Deborah. No wonder 
 the baby loved her ! 
 
 " We have six hours in which to behave as badly 
 as we like," Miss Deborah announced. " We have 
 no standard to set for the young."
 
 8o John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 It was a glorious afternoon. The sun had come 
 out that morning for the first time in three days, 
 and was shining with a prodigal liberality which 
 suggested that he was refreshed by his holiday. 
 Trees, grass, and shrubs had all profited by the rain 
 and were a vivid green. The raspberry bushes 
 were white with starry blossoms along the roadside, 
 and the irregular stone walls gave a touch of somber 
 color to the otherwise resplendent landscape. A 
 couple of song-sparrows trilled out their liquid notes 
 as the sisters drove by. Lucy had suffered in the 
 past; her imagination and her common sense alike 
 told her that she would suffer again in the future, 
 but on this marvelous July day she could only add a 
 silent song of thanksgiving to the more musical 
 but no more heartfelt chorus of praise of the song 
 sparrows. As they approached the Newhall farm 
 memories detached themselves from the haze of the 
 distant past, recollections that were sometimes 
 sweet, sometimes intolerably bitter. To-day the 
 sweet predominated. Lucy saw herself as a tiny 
 girl running barefoot in the fields with an older 
 girl and boy, learning a wealth of childish lore about 
 birds and flowers and the signs of the sky ; reveling 
 in a love of nature so keen it was almost intoxicat- 
 ing. She had spent a part of six happy summers 
 in her childhood at the Newhall farm. It was not 
 until she was a girl of thirteen and Alec a boy of
 
 The Newhall Farm 81 
 
 seventeen that it ever crossed her mind there was a 
 wide gulf fixed between them. But that summer 
 Letitia had passed a part of the holiday with her, and 
 had sowed the first seeds of worldly wisdom in her 
 mind. She told her that it had been all very well to 
 be friends with Sophy and Alec when they were chil- 
 dren, but she was getting too big a girl now; they 
 were in a different class from herself. She must be 
 polite to them, of course; it would be unkind to 
 hurt their feelings, but she must be on her guard. 
 Before that summer the Newhall farm had stood for 
 Paradise to Lucy ; but after the serpent had entered 
 in and she had eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowl- 
 edge, the old happiness was gone. In spite of later 
 events, which had proved to the satisfaction of her 
 family that Alec was the last man to whom they 
 would have been willing to entrust her happiness, 
 such was the glamour of those old days that Lucy 
 never could think of that eager young face and those 
 ardent dark eyes without emotion. Whatever he 
 was in later life, and even yet she had not become 
 used to the surprise and pain of it, he had been a 
 delightful young fellow, with a charm that had 
 taken the flavor out of other men for her ever 
 since. And now this afternoon she was to see his 
 father for the first time in many years ! 
 The road led through woods that were alive with 
 
 birds and fragrant with flowers, and up hills whence 
 6
 
 82 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 they could get a view of still higher hills misty on 
 the horizon, and everywhere there was the enchant- 
 ment that Nature has for her lovers, an enchant- 
 ment that was so great as for the moment to coun- 
 terbalance all the joys of youth in Lucy's mind. 
 
 " Life is a game of consequences," said Miss 
 Deborah. " One thing follows another just as it 
 does in ' The House that Jack Built.' " 
 
 " Yes," said Lucy, softly. She was thinking of 
 her own past, and supposed that Deborah had it in 
 mind also. 
 
 " Who would have thought," Miss Deborah went 
 on, " that John's marrying Esther Norris would 
 have been the indirect cause of my buying a 
 cow?" 
 
 In her relief that her sister was not trenching on 
 any more personal ground, Lucy's laugh was almost 
 hysterical. 
 
 " I won't deny that I have been longing for years 
 for a good excuse for buying a cow," Miss Deborah 
 continued, " an excuse that would justify itself to 
 Letitia and to the neighborhood. Now, to tell you 
 the honest truth (I would not own it to a soul but 
 you, Lucy, but you are as secret as the grave), I 
 am glad that Mr. Gray is to have the best of milk, 
 poor dear creature, instead of milkman's milk di- 
 luted by water; but you can't buy a cow on account 
 of your cat and keep your self-respect under the
 
 The Newhall Farm 83 
 
 gibes of your neighbors. Letitia will like the good 
 milk as well as anyone, and she can't call it an 
 extravagance, so long as John is generous enough 
 to make us a present of the cow. Of course it 
 isn't as if the animal wouldn't eat and didn't have to 
 be taken care of. I can see that as well as Letitia 
 can, but Patrick will take care of her for very little 
 more money than we pay him at present, and we can 
 sell milk to the Simondses." 
 
 They were driving up the last hill now, and the 
 weather-beaten farmhouse, gray with the exposure 
 of years, stood out in sharp relief against the deep- 
 blue sky. Lucy's heart beat more quickly as she 
 caught sight of the wide stone step that stood' before 
 the side door, and the cinnamon-roses that were 
 blooming with the same luxuriance with which they 
 had blossomed in her childhood. A barefooted girl 
 and boy were sitting on the step playing shop, with 
 rose-leaves for money, just as she and Alec had 
 done. They were the children of the young couple 
 who lived with Mr. Newhall to take care of him 
 and do the farm work. Old Peter Newhall was 
 expecting Miss Deborah, and came out to greet her 
 with that combination of dignity and simplicity 
 characteristic of the free-born American of the hill 
 country. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you here again," he said. 
 He gave her a scrutinizing glance, and then added,
 
 84 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 t{ You've fleshed up considerable since I saw you 
 last. I never thought you'd be so good-looking." 
 
 Miss Deborah laughed, and turned to greet the 
 young foreman. 
 
 "And this is little Lucy!" Mr. Newhall said, 
 with a touch of tenderness in his voice. " Seems as 
 though it was only last year you was running 'round 
 here barefooted with my children, and not more 
 than knee-high to a grasshopper, and now " 
 
 " Now I am a middle-aged woman." 
 
 " Don't call yourself that. You're a young thing 
 yet. Wait until you are eighty years old, and you'll 
 find you'll look back to the age you are now, and 
 think it hardly more than girlhood." 
 
 He gave her a long, keen look, and then said, 
 " You have the same hair and eyes, but you've 
 got considerable many lines in your face for one 
 that has led such a sheltered life. I want to show 
 you my garden. Harry, you take Miss Deborah 
 out to the pasture, and let her be looking at the 
 cows; if she don't like Cowslip, mebby Daisy'll 
 suit her, and then there's Dandelion. I'll come 
 along presently." 
 
 Lucy followed Mr. Newhall to the old-fashioned 
 garden that had been the delight of her childhood. 
 Dyeletras were there, and hollyhocks, sunflowers, 
 petunias, pansies, larkspurs, and portulacca. 
 
 " The dear old garden ! " said Lucy. And once
 
 The Xevvhall Farm 8$ 
 
 more she saw herself as a barefooted child gathering 
 nosegays with Alec, and his dark eyes looked at 
 her with the old childish confidence before the 
 shadow had come into them. 
 
 " I never can go into this garden without think- 
 ing of Alec," said Alec's father softly, as he began 
 to pick the flowers. " You won't mind an old- 
 fashioned bokay for once, will you? Picked by an 
 old man in memory of old times? I know it ain't 
 stylish to put 'em in all together, but you can take 
 'em apart when you get 'em home." 
 
 " I love them just as they are," said Lucy. " I 
 could not spare one. It is like assorted recollec- 
 tions," she added shyly. 
 
 He looked at her sharply. " Now, what do you 
 mean by that ? " 
 
 " I mean that every flower tells its own story, 
 and has its separate association, and that they all 
 speak to me of the happiest time in my life." 
 . There was silence between them for a moment, 
 then the old man said slowly, " You seemed so 
 happy together I never could understand why you 
 couldn't care for him a little more. Of course we 
 were plain people," he went on, " and your folks 
 held their heads high, especially your father and 
 Letitia. They say all men are born free and equal ; 
 it ain't true. It is only when they are dead they are 
 on the same level. Your father and my Alec are
 
 86 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 lying near neighbors now, and one doesn't hold his 
 head any higher than the other." 
 
 He was silent again, and then he said, " Time was 
 I was as sure you would be Alec's wife as I am that 
 we are both standing here." 
 
 " He never asked me," said Lucy in a low tone. 
 
 Peter Newhall glanced at her sharply, but her 
 eyes, looking straight into his face with their old 
 steadfastness, assured him that she was speaking 
 the truth. 
 
 " Is that so? " he said. " There's other ways of 
 asking besides putting a question in plain words," he 
 continued, presently. " If he never asked you, it 
 must have been because you had shown him what 
 the answer would be. There was a Sunday night 
 I never shall forget that Sunday night when he'd 
 been to meeting in Eppingham. I knew very well 
 why he took that long drive; 't want for any love 
 of the Gospel. Alec, poor fellow, never was a great 
 hand to go to church, and when he came back, 
 and I asked him if he had spoken with Lucy Wyatt, 
 he turned on me with a face like a thunder-cloud. 
 I can't exactly remember what he said, only he 
 swore at me poor Alec, he wa'n't one to swear in 
 general and he told me he never wanted to hear 
 Lucy Wyatt's name again." 
 
 Lucy's mind went back to that Sunday morn- 
 ing, and she recalled all the incidents connected with
 
 The Newhall Farm 87 
 
 it, so trifling in themselves, so momentous in their 
 consequences. It was after Alec's return from the 
 West; he had not made a success of life there. 
 Even at the time she could see that her father and 
 sisters were right in doubting his stability, and as 
 she and Letitia were walking to church together, 
 Letitia had said, " I dare say we shall see Alec New- 
 hall. If we do, don't stop to speak to him. I 
 wouldn't cut him for anything in the world ; it is 
 cruel to go back on an old friend, only, if he tries 
 to speak to us, we'll bow to him politely, but dis- 
 tantly, as if his being at home or in the West were 
 all the same to us. It is kinder to him in the end to 
 dash his hopes at once, or else he will be continually 
 hanging around you, now he has come home for 
 good." 
 
 All through the long service Lucy's mind was 
 fixed on those eager dark eyes at the back of the 
 church. She felt that they were riveted on her 
 golden hair and flowered muslin gown. When the 
 service was over, Letitia drew Lucy's arm through 
 hers and took her up to thank old Mr. Moorhouse 
 for his sermon. They stood there for some time 
 talking to one person and another, until Lucy was 
 in a fever of impatience, fearing that Alec would 
 have gone home, but when they came out into 
 the sunshine, there he stood, a smile on his 
 face, a happy light in his eyes, one hand out-
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 stretched to greet Miss Letitia, who was nearer 
 him. She bowed with that combination of dignity, 
 distant graciousness and icy stiffness of which she 
 was mistress. An empress might thus have greeted 
 the humblest of her subjects. Alec's hand fell to 
 his side and his expression changed. He looked at 
 Lucy with an appealing glance that stirred her to 
 her heart's core. Her impulse was to brave Letitia's 
 displeasure and put out her hand to greet her old 
 playfellow with a little fragment of the affection 
 that filled her heart. She longed to say, " Alec, I 
 ani glad you have come home. Won't you come to 
 see me? Can't you dine with us to-day?" She 
 had often wondered what would have happened if 
 she had said those few words. Instead of that the 
 fear of Letitia, joined to shyness and her conscien- 
 tious wish not to encourage Alec, for the seeds of 
 worldliness that had been planted in her mind had 
 grown, and she was by no means sure that she 
 wished to marry him; these things prevented her 
 yielding to her first impulse. She bowed with a 
 softened reproduction of her sister's nod and passed 
 on. She could not measure the full effect of such a 
 bow coming from one who was usually so gentle 
 and friendly. In the days that followed, she still 
 expected a call from Alec, or a chance meeting, 
 some occasion in which she could retrieve the mis- 
 chief done in that half minute. But Alec went
 
 The Newhall Farm 89 
 
 back to the West, instead of staying to be the prop 
 of his father's advancing years, and when in the 
 course of time he made one of those reckless mar- 
 riages that good women living sheltered lives 
 speak of with bated breath, it could hardly be ex- 
 pected that Letitia could refrain from saying, " I 
 told you so." She did not say it baldly in just those 
 words, but rang the changes in half a dozen 
 ways on the unreliability of Alec Newhall and her 
 sister's lucky escape. It would have been a great 
 misfortune if Lucy had given her heart to a man 
 who, besides being her inferior in birth, was so de- 
 plorably lacking in moral stamina. Lucy agreed 
 with Letitia. She summoned pride to her aid and 
 did her best to try to love a dull young man who 
 was attracted to her. 
 
 " Poor Alec," said Alec's father softly. 
 
 Lucy came back to the present with a start. The 
 bouquet of " assorted recollections " was almost 
 finished. Peter Newhall was adding to the bright 
 array of gaudy flowers pansies " for thought." 
 
 " I know he never set out to do wrong. He 
 wa'n't headed that way when he was a boy," he said 
 in a low voice. " He had good impulses. No one 
 who loved the sky and the birds and all growing 
 things as he did could be bad at heart." 
 
 Lucy was silent. 
 
 " I don't want you to feel too hard towards my
 
 QO John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 poor boy. There's others no better than he that 
 don't get punished half so hard, and there's folks 
 that never sinned, because they wa'n't tempted. 
 There's Frank Hollis, his second cousin, who was 
 so crazy about your sister Letitia. Well, when she 
 wouldn't have him, he took up with my Sophy, and 
 she's been a devoted wife to him for all these years. 
 Frank wa'n't half so bright as my boy or half so 
 pleasant-mannered, but he's led a useful life and 
 preached the gospel for more'n thirty years, and 
 my boy is dead, and all the good in him is forgot- 
 ten." 
 
 " It is not forgotten," said Lucy, turning her 
 blue eyes towards him brimming with tears. 
 
 " Seems though the Lord punished some sins 
 out of proportion to their size," he mused. " Frank 
 was cool and sort o' cautious, and my boy was like 
 quicksilver; he had a temper and too much pride, 
 but it seemed hard that one should be so successful 
 and the other so unfortunate." 
 
 "Lucy, are you never coming?" called Miss 
 Deborah, in her cheerful contralto. " I must have 
 your advice about the cow." 
 
 Lucy started obediently to go to her sister. 
 
 " Guess you're one that's obeyed all your life," 
 the old man said, significantly.
 
 COWSLIP
 
 COWSLIP 
 
 IT was always easy for Misr Deborah to make a 
 choice, and she had chosen Cowslip with 
 hardly a moment's hesitation. Therefore it 
 was not Lucy's advice she wanted, but merely the 
 support of her admiration. Cowslip was a pretty 
 Alderney. The only fault that could be found 
 with her looks was a white patch placed on her face 
 in an irregular way, which Lucy felt instinctively 
 would be very trying to Letitia, and yet it did not 
 seem of sufficient importance to prevent the pur- 
 chase. So Cowslip became the property of the 
 Wyatts, and Mr. Gray no longer reigned supreme. 
 
 When the cow arrived the whole family went out 
 to the barn to see her installed, and John, Esther, 
 and the children were loud in her praises. Miss 
 Letitia looked at her in a more critical spirit. " How 
 many cows did you have to choose from?" she 
 asked Deborah. 
 
 " Three." 
 
 93
 
 94 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " I should think you might have found a better- 
 looking one." 
 
 " Why, I love that deep fawn color," said Esther. 
 
 " The color is all right, but that white patch on 
 her face drives me wild, it is so one-sided." 
 
 " I didn't think about that," said Deborah. 
 
 " I never knew any one with so little esthetic 
 sense as you have," Letitia remarked patiently. " I 
 should have bought a cow that was not conspicuous. 
 However, if you and Lucy like her, it is of no con- 
 sequence whether I am satisfied. I am quite accus- 
 tomed to accepting the choice of others. Only I 
 can't see how two people with average eyes could 
 have looked at that cow without noticing that the 
 white spot gave her a weird expression. Her milk 
 will be just as good," she added, with an assumption 
 at cheerfulness. 
 
 Miss Deborah's pleasure in the possession of the 
 cow was considerably dampened. She tried to 
 recollect whether Daisy and Dandelion had white 
 spots on their faces, and went so far as to suggest 
 that they might effect an exchange. 
 
 " No," said Miss Letitia. " There would be some 
 out about the others. You have bought her, and it 
 is best to keep her." 
 
 " How is Peter Newhall? " she asked Lucy, that 
 evening. " I always liked him. He is such a typi- 
 cal farmer of the old school ; a quiet, God-fearing
 
 Cowslip 95 
 
 old fellow. It is hard he should have had such a 
 trial in his youngest son. Sophy was very different. 
 She was essentially a lady. She had the advantage 
 of being sent away to school, and her acquaintance 
 with Deborah, and Clara Hollis, and me did a great 
 deal for her. I always liked Sophy; she was un- 
 selfish and good. A little dull, to be sure. I never 
 could see why a man like Frank Hollis married her, 
 but as a rule men seem to be happier with dull wives. 
 Homer Newhall was very much like Sophy. He 
 never would have set the river on fire. I have no 
 doubt he was a great loss to his wife. It is hard 
 she should have to come down to taking boarders. I 
 can't think where Alec got his reckless disposition. 
 There must have been bad blood on the mother's 
 side of the house." 
 
 Lucy made an excuse to leave the room. Her 
 cheeks were burning, and she felt stifled with the 
 emotions of twenty years. 
 
 " You look tired, dear," said Letitia. " I was 
 afraid that long drive would be too much for you." 
 
 " I have a little headache." 
 
 " I knew it would be bad for you, taking your 
 supper out of doors and sitting on the damp grass, 
 but I am tired of throwing cold water on your 
 plans. I find it best to let you learn by experience." 
 
 Miss Letitia had nothing but the highest praise
 
 96 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 to give Cowslip's milk and cream. " I had no idea 
 there was such a difference between cow's milk and 
 milkman's milk," she observed graciously. 
 
 The baby's drooping health revived, the children 
 took long draughts of milk at frequent intervals, 
 and the family reveled in desserts with an accom- 
 paniment of whipped cream. It had seemed to out- 
 siders as if Mr. Gray were as prosperous as it was 
 possible for one of his kind to be, before the arrival 
 of Cowslip, but his aunt Deborah, with the insight 
 of affection, discovered a more serene expression on 
 his face, and was sure there was an addition to his 
 weight after he had lived for a fortnight on the 
 best of milk. They were a very happy family for 
 a month, and then, owing to the intense August 
 heat, Cowslip fell ill. 
 
 " I have always heard that Alderneys are more 
 delicate than any other cows," Miss Letitia observed 
 ominously at breakfast one morning. 
 
 " Look here, Letitia Wyatt," said Miss Deborah, 
 " I will stand a great deal from you, but that is a 
 little too much. The next time we have a cow you 
 may choose her, and see to the whole care of her. 
 I had the bother of buying Cowslip, and I have had 
 no end of trouble with her first and last, and I won't 
 stand being criticized." 
 
 Letitia looked at her sister reproachfully. Deb- 
 orah's occasional outbreaks of temper were one of
 
 Cowslip 97 
 
 the chief trials of her lot. They were so unreason- 
 able, so unexpected. 
 
 " My dear," she said gently, " I was not criti- 
 cising. I was merely stating a fact." Miss Letitia 
 had never ceased to be thankful that she had in- 
 herited her mother's even temper. 
 
 " I was a beast," Miss Deborah owned remorse- 
 fully. " I am tired out with anxiety about Cow- 
 slip. She is a dear creature, and she looked at 
 me this morning with such sad, reproachful eyes, 
 begging me to do something to help her. Heaven 
 knows I would spend my life with her, if it would 
 do any good." 
 
 " Why don't you hold an umbrella over her, Aunt 
 Deborah ? " Jack suggested. 
 
 " I have been thinking of something of the kind. 
 The veterinary surgeon says she is too ill to be 
 moved. We can't even get her into the shade. 
 Patrick has tied a wet sponge to her horns, but she 
 still feels the heat. I proposed to Patrick that he 
 should make some sort of a shelter for her, but he 
 didn't see it in that light. He was ' driv' with other 
 work,' as he expressed it. That is the trouble with 
 having only a tenth of a man. When I am rich 
 I shall keep a whole one. I wish Laura Macauley 
 would lend me her sketching-umbrella." 
 
 Lily and Jack dashed off in quest of Miss Mac-
 
 98 John Forsyte's Aunts 
 
 auley. They were not commissioned to do so, but 
 thought it well to take time by the forelock. 
 
 Laura Macauley, cool and self-contained, was sit- 
 ting on her side piazza, with the latest Atlantic 
 Monthly in her hands, when two breathless, dis- 
 heveled children rushed up to her. 
 
 " Please, Miss Laura, Aunt Deborah wants to 
 borrow your sketching-umbrella," Tack panted. 
 
 " Your Aunt Deborah wants to borrow my sketch- 
 ing-umbrella ?" Miss Macauley asked incredulously. 
 She had never associated the fine arts with Miss 
 Deborah Wyatt. 
 
 " It is for the cow," Lily explained. 
 
 Miss Macauley was under the impression that 
 somebody wanted to make a sketch of Miss Deb- 
 orah's favorite. "Who paints at your house?" 
 she inquired. 
 
 " It is for the cow," Lily repeated. " She is sick, 
 and we thought it would be a good plan to hold an 
 umbrella over her, and yours is the biggest in town." 
 
 " Did your Aunt Deborah send you here? " 
 
 " She didn't exactly send us," Lily confessed. 
 " She just wished you would lend her the umbrella, 
 and so we came for it to save time." 
 
 Miss Macauley's sense of humor was not of the 
 keenest, but the picture of Miss Deborah Wyati, 
 who had always scorned the amount of wasted time 
 that the sketching-umbrella represented, being re-
 
 Cowslip 99 
 
 duced to abjectly borrow it for her cow appealed 
 even to her. She threw back her head and laughed. 
 
 " The cow is real sick," said Jack. " I don't 
 see why you think it's so funny." 
 
 " We've got it, Aunt Deborah," the children said 
 a little later, as they thrust the sketching-umbrella 
 into Miss Deborah's astonished hands. 
 
 " My dear children ! Who told you to go for that 
 umbrella? " 
 
 " We thought we would surprise you." 
 
 " I was only joking. I never dreamed of really 
 borrowing Laura's sacred umbrella. Letitia, do 
 you think I oughtto send it back ? " Miss Deborah's 
 outbreak of temper had left her in a chastened 
 mood. Under these circumstances she was willing 
 to ask her sister's advice. 
 
 " I don't know. What did she say, children ? " 
 
 " She laughed and laughed when she heard the 
 cow was sick. I guess she wouldn't think it was 
 so funny if it was her cow. And she said what 
 was it she said, Lily ? She was so particular for us 
 to remember it exactly." 
 
 " She said, ' Please give my compliments to your 
 aunt Deborah, and tell her I am glad she can find 
 such a good use for my sketching-umbrella.' " 
 
 " You may as well keep it, as she was kind enough 
 to send it," Letitia counseled. So the umbrella 
 stayed. Miss Deborah and the children went with
 
 ioo John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 it to the enclosure behind the garden, where the cow 
 was stretched limply on the parched August grass. 
 Miss Deborah planted the umbrella firmly in the 
 ground, and its generous shade kept the sun from 
 poor Cowslip's head. 
 
 " There," said Miss Deborah, when her work was 
 accomplished, " I am glad that umbrella is doing 
 a useful deed for once in its life. Children, run in 
 and ask your aunt Letitia to give you the big palm- 
 leaf fan that stands on the top of the right-hand 
 book-case in the library, and I will fan this poor 
 creature; the flies are troubling her; and bring out 
 the little camp-stool." 
 
 There was nothing funny to the children in the 
 picture their aunt Deborah made as she sat on her 
 camp-stool that hot forenoon waving her large 
 palm-leaf fan, and it is safe to assert that the humor- 
 ous side did not strike Cowslip. Miss Letitia was 
 amused when she sallied out towards twelve o'clock 
 to see how her sister was faring. 
 
 " Deborah, you look too absurd in your short 
 skirt with that huge fan under that immense um- 
 brella. You remind me of a toad under a toad- 
 stool. I never saw anything so funny in my life." 
 
 " I am glad if you are amused." 
 
 " I wish you could see yourself," and Miss Letitia 
 laughed again. " Perhaps you would like me to 
 send your dinner to you? " she added ironically.
 
 Cowslip 101 
 
 " I should like to swear at you, Letitia Wyatt, 
 that is what I should like. You are enough to 
 drive a saint crazy." 
 
 " I didn't mean to make you angry. I never can 
 tell what is going to make you angry," Letitia re- 
 marked in an injured tone. " I was merely in fun. 
 You can usually see the funny side of things as well 
 as anyone. 
 
 " If you think it is easy to see the funny side of 
 the dangerous illness of your only cow, when you 
 have been broiling like a lobster in her service, you 
 can take your turn and try it. I am a little tired, 
 and will give up my place to you willingly." 
 
 " Thank you. The hot sun always gives me a 
 headache." 
 
 " It is very lucky that I am so constituted that I 
 like the scorching sun." 
 
 " Deborah, dear, I am sure you are very tired. 
 Do leave that cow to herself. A few flies won't 
 hurt her. You are of more importance than the 
 cow. If she is going to die she will die, and if she 
 is going to get well she will get well." 
 
 " Good-by, Letitia Wyatt I have enjoyed your 
 call exceedingly, but I think you ought not to stay 
 out any longer in the broiling sun." 
 
 " Why don't you get Lily and Jack to fan 
 her?" 
 
 " Why don't I get chain lightning to help me? "
 
 IO2 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Deborah, I insist, for your own good, upon your 
 coming into the house at once." 
 
 " Letitia, / won't." 
 
 Miss Deborah had been fully intending to take a 
 recess, but she was not going to be ordered in by 
 Letitia. 
 
 Miss Letitia went back and held a family council. 
 As the result, Lucy came out presently with a glass 
 of lemonade and a piece of sponge-cake. 
 
 " Now, Deborah, just let me fan Cowslip for a 
 few minutes," she coaxed, as her sister gratefully 
 accepted the proffered lunch. 
 
 " My dear, you will get a sunstroke. I shall not 
 allow it on any account." 
 
 " Then come in with me ; when it gets cooler, you 
 can fan her again." 
 
 " I am going to fan Cowslip as long as I like." 
 
 When John came home a little later he was taken 
 into Miss Letitia's confidence. 
 
 " Your aunt Deborah has one of her obstinate 
 fits," she informed him. " She will stay and fan 
 that cow until she drops." 
 
 "Aunt Deborah or the cow?" 
 
 "It is no joking matter. It is preposterous; a 
 middle-aged lady on a hot August day, sitting under 
 a sketching-umbrella, fanning a cow, and declaring 
 that she will not be dictated to by anybody. Try if 
 you can't make her listen to reason, John."
 
 Cowslip 103 
 
 John obediently went out to the enclosure. " It 
 is a pleasant day, Aunt Deborah," he began blandly. 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " A trifle warm ? " he suggested. 
 
 " A trifle." 
 
 " Give me that fan. I want to try fanning Cow- 
 slip a minute." 
 
 She rose from her camp-stool and let him take 
 her place. 
 
 "How long have you been out here?" he in- 
 quired, as he swung the fan briskly back and forth. 
 
 " Sixteen years, judging by my feelings." 
 
 " I thought so. It is six months since I came 
 out." 
 
 "Do you think Cowslip is going to die?" Miss 
 Deborah inquired anxiously. 
 
 " I am pretty sure, if you and I both sacrifice 
 our lives for her sake, she won't." 
 
 " You ridiculous boy ! Come, you never did like 
 to do anything useful. Let me take my place 
 again." 
 
 " Aunt Deborah, I am going to sit" on this camp- 
 stool and fan the cow until you promise to go into 
 the house." 
 
 " John, don't be obstinate." 
 
 " If I am, I inherited the trait from a collateral." 
 
 " Give me that fan." 
 
 " Don't you wish you could get it ? "
 
 IO4 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " John, you are behaving like a boy of ten." 
 
 " Aunt Deborah, you are behaving like a girl of 
 six." 
 
 " Well, perhaps you are right. I don't know 
 what has got into me to-day, but when Letitia came 
 out in her white morning-gown, looking so cool and 
 superior, and laughed at me in my short skirt and 
 told me to go in, I vowed I wouldn't stir a step." 
 
 " I haven't on a white gown, and I am not cool 
 and superior." 
 
 " There are days when Letitia sets my nerves on 
 edge," Miss Deborah confessed. " I know it is very 
 wrong of me, for she is always so reasonable and 
 sweet-tempered." 
 
 " I am seldom reasonable, and only sweet-tem- 
 pered by accident," John observed tranquilly. 
 " Aunt Deborah, how long do you mean to keep 
 me out here ? " 
 
 " I advise you to go in at once." 
 
 " I shan't until you do." 
 
 " How can I allow myself to be routed by Le- 
 titia?" 
 
 " You are only being routed by me. I am not 
 patient, and I shall begin to swear presently; you 
 know you wouldn't like that." 
 
 " I am not so sure. It would be a relief to have 
 somebody swear." 
 
 They walked amicably back to the house, John
 
 Cowslip 105 
 
 promising to come out again before dinner to give 
 Cowslip another fanning. 
 
 " I was sure John could make you listen to 
 reason," Miss Letitia said serenely, looking up from 
 the book she was reading in the shaded library. 
 
 Miss Deborah pressed her lips firmly together and 
 gave her sister in pantomime behind her back, 
 for John's benefit, the good shaking she longed to 
 administer. 
 
 Cowslip improved. By the end of the day there 
 seemed a fair probability of her recovery, but when 
 Patrick came at night he thought it best not to try 
 to move her for the present. 
 
 " I hope, Deborah, you won't think it necessary 
 to fan her all the evening," Miss Letitia observed. 
 
 In the middle of the night Miss Deborah was 
 dimly conscious of gusts of wind and a storm of 
 rain beating against the house. She remembered 
 that the entry window was wide open, and that the 
 carpet would get soaked, but she was too tired to 
 care. A blinding flash of lightning and an almost 
 instantaneous peal of thunder recalled her sharply 
 to this world. 
 
 " Cowslip ! " she cried. " The poor dear will die 
 of cold." 
 
 Forgetting her fatigue she hastily flung on her 
 gray-and-white outing flannel wrapper, and slipping 
 her bare feet into her rubbers, seized a couple of old
 
 io6 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 blankets and started for the front door. In the 
 entry she paused and gave a hurried glance at the 
 umbrella-stand. Laura Macauley's sketching um- 
 brella was thrust like an unwilling guest in among 
 the Wyatts' trim silk ones. 
 
 " It will spoil the looks of it," she said; " but no 
 matter, it is in a good cause. I shall have to get 
 her another. I suppose they are very expensive, 
 never mind. I hope she hasn't any tender associa- 
 tions with it, but if she has they must go." 
 
 Hastily taking the umbrella, she unlocked the 
 door and started for the enclosure. The blinding 
 flashes of lightning enabled her to find her way. 
 In the intervals of darkness she paused occasionally 
 to rest. When Miss Deborah reached Cowslip at 
 last, she draped the blankets over her and planted 
 the sketching umbrella firmly in the ground. It was 
 large enough to keep off most of the rain. 
 
 " There, poor dear, I have done my level best for 
 you," she said. " If you die it will not be my re- 
 sponsibility." 
 
 Meanwhile one member after another of the 
 Wyatt household was awakened by the peals of 
 thunder. 
 
 " Deborah," Letitia called to her sister, " the 
 entry window is open." 
 
 There was no answer. Deborah always looked 
 after the windows, but as it was evident that she was
 
 Cowslip 107 
 
 asleep Letitia rose reluctantly and went to shut it 
 herself. The rain was beating in violently and 
 splashed on her face and hands. 
 
 Lucy in her pale blue wrapper came softly down- 
 stairs. " I am afraid to be up in the third story 
 all alone in this awful storm," she confessed as she 
 sought the safe harbor of Deborah's room. 
 
 " Come in to me, dear," said Letitia. 
 
 Lucy was standing on the threshold of Deborah's 
 door. 
 
 " Deborah isn't there," she exclaimed. 
 
 " Nonsense. Of course she is there; she is 
 asleep." 
 
 " Come and see for yourself." 
 
 The two sisters looked at the crumpled bedclothes 
 and at the pillow with its recent indentations, and 
 then at each other. 
 
 " I believe she has gone out to the cow," said 
 Letitia. " She will take her death of cold. Run 
 down, Lucy, and see if Laura Macauley's umbrella 
 is in the stand." 
 
 " I don't dare go. I am afraid of the lightning." 
 
 Miss Letitia went down a few steps and looked 
 over the balusters.' " It isn't there," she said. 
 
 Esther opened her door at that moment. " I 
 want a little society," she remarked. " John is 
 asleep. Fancy sleeping through such a thunder- 
 storm."
 
 io8 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Where do you suppose your aunt Deborah is? " 
 asked Miss Letitia. 
 
 " In bed, I hope." 
 
 " Out on the hillside with Cowslip. I don't be- 
 lieve she would care if she were struck and killed 
 if only that miserable cow escaped. I wish she had 
 as much consideration for her family as she has for 
 animals. Now, of course, somebody will have to 
 go out and get her in." 
 
 " I will wake John," said Esther. 
 
 Her voice made a gentle accompaniment to the 
 storm. They could not hear what she said, although 
 the door was ajar, but above the sound of the 
 tempest came an exclamation in John's deep bass 
 that sounded suspiciously like " Damn the cow." 
 
 Presently he came out, still grumbling, equipped 
 in his oldest clothes. 
 
 " You had better take the lantern," advised Miss 
 Letitia from her room. " The lantern is in the 
 china-closet cupboard, the right-hand cupboard, on 
 the middle shelf." 
 
 A terrific peal of thunder drowned the close of 
 her remarks, and John plunged downstairs and out 
 into the storm, trusting to the lightning to guide 
 his steps. 
 
 " How terrible it would be if one of them should 
 be struck," Lucy suggested with a little shiver, as 
 she crouched down on her sister's bed. Esther went
 
 Cowslip 109 
 
 in to see how the children and the baby were faring. 
 ' They were peacefully sleeping. It took more than 
 a little thing like a thunder-storm to wake them. 
 
 Meanwhile Miss Deborah, having fulfilled her 
 duty in the station in life to which she had been 
 called, was slowly making her way homeward. Her 
 India-rubbers were filled with water, which gurgled 
 out in cold streams on her bare feet with every step 
 she took. She was drenched to the skin, but it was 
 such a warm night that she enjoyed it. In fact the 
 whole adventure was one that appealed to her daring 
 spirit. After two or three brilliant flashes of 
 lightning there was a period of Ethiopian darkness 
 through which she struggled towards the beacon 
 lights of the house. Presently a shadowy form rose 
 at her side. 
 
 Miss Deborah had a stout heart, but the appari- 
 tion of a man at midnight in her garden gave her 
 a fright. She steadied her voice, however, and 
 inquired sternly, " What are you doing here at this 
 time of night when all respectable people are in their 
 beds?" 
 
 " Upon my word I like that," answered John's 
 voice. " What am I doing at this time of night? If 
 all respectable people were in their beds I shouldn't 
 have had this wild-goose chase, but my wife insisted 
 on my going after you." 
 
 " I am so relieved to find it is you, John. Poor
 
 no John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 fellow! It was a shame for them to send you out. 
 Letitia can never learn that I am old enough to take 
 care of myself. The cow is getting on all right. 
 I have covered her up in two thick blankets, and 
 put Laura Macauley's umbrella over her, and I 
 think she " 
 
 " Oh, confound the cow ! The question is how are 
 you getting on ? It is an awful night for you to be 
 out. You ought to" have rheumatic fever or pneu- 
 monia as a sequel to this escapade." 
 
 " I have never done what was expected of me in 
 my whole life, John, and I am not likely to begin 
 at my age." 
 
 Miss Deborah proved a true prophet. She did 
 not even have a cold, as the consequence of her ad- 
 venture. Miss Letitia watched her carefully for 
 two or three days for symptoms of chills-and-fever, 
 or grippe. 
 
 " I know you are dreadfully disappointed, Leti- 
 tia," Miss Deborah observed briskly. " It is hard 
 you can't have the comfort of saying, * I told you 
 so. Deborah, when will you ever learn not to do 
 such crazy things ? ' ' 
 
 " I am thankful you haven't made yourself ill. 
 dear," returned Miss Letitia, " but it was just as 
 crazy a thing for you to do." 
 
 " Well, I don't care. I am as strong as a horse, 
 and there is no reason why I should not do crazy
 
 Cowslip in 
 
 things. I mean to do crazier and crazier things, 
 Letitia. I think it is time I had my fling. And I 
 accomplished my object. Cowslip is getting well." 
 " I have no doubt she would have got well in any 
 event," said Miss Letitia.
 
 AN OLD LOVER
 
 VI 
 AN OLD LOVER 
 
 T TERE is your valise, Frank. I don't think I 
 A JL have forgotten anything." 
 " Thank you, Sophy." 
 
 " Have you got your eye-glasses ? " Mrs. Hollis 
 asked her husband presently. 
 
 " Of course I have." 
 
 She did not remind him that he had left them be- 
 hind on a former occasion. 
 
 The Reverend Francis Hollis was in that nervous 
 state of mind that is apt to precede a journey when 
 it is a rare event. He took out his watch. " Five 
 minutes of three. Jones ought to be here," he said 
 impatiently. 
 
 " You didn't order the carriage until three," his 
 wife reminded him, timidly. " You must give a 
 great deal of love to father," she added, " and to 
 your sister Clara and Frances, and the doctor, and 
 
 to " she hesitated. " I suppose you will see the 
 
 "5
 
 n6 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Wyatts? " she inquired with an assumption of care- 
 lessness. 
 
 " If I have time I shall look them up," he an- 
 swered with equal indifference. 
 
 " Clara says Letitia is as handsome as ever," she 
 ventured. " How long is it since you have seen 
 her? It must be twenty years at least." 
 
 " It is all of that." 
 
 " She will find you very much changed." 
 
 " Changed? " He turned on her sharply. 
 
 " Yes, you have grown so much stouter, and you 
 are getting so gray. It is very becoming to you," 
 Mrs. Hollis hastened to add. " I never saw you 
 looking better than you are looking this minute, I 
 was only thinking she would find a difference. We 
 are middle-aged people now, Frank." 
 
 He looked at his wife with her plump, matronly 
 figure and gray hair. Sophy had never been pretty, 
 and on the whole the years had been kind to her; 
 she had gained more than she had lost. Still, it 
 was true; they were middle-aged people according 
 to the ideas of the world. He wondered that Sophy 
 should have reminded him that he was changed. 
 She was not usually lacking in tact, but perhaps it 
 was too much to expect her to understand him so 
 completely as to be able to realize that there were 
 days when he felt like an ardent boy, in spite of his 
 sixty years. This was one of those days. It was
 
 An Old Lover 117 
 
 not of Sophy, who had been his faithful wife for 
 more than thirty years that he was thinking, as the 
 carriage drew up to the door, but of a girl whose 
 marvelous beauty had won his heart nearly forty 
 years ago. 
 
 The Reverend Francis Hollis had been a devoted 
 husband, according to the average standard ; he had 
 nothing to reproach himself with, he declared, as he 
 went down the doorsteps, and yet, in all those years 
 there had not been a time when the mere mention 
 of this other woman's name had not quickened his 
 pulses. Safe at the bottom of a drawer in his study 
 was her photograph. He did not often look at it, 
 to have done so would have seemed to him disloyal, 
 but deep down in the bottom of his mind was the 
 thought of her. Letitia Wyatt was the most beauti- 
 ful woman he had ever known and the most gifted. 
 Her standard had been so high that she could not 
 think of him for a husband, but this had only set 
 her on a more lofty pinnacle. Humility was not his 
 chief characteristic, but he was very humble when- 
 ever he thought of Letitia Wyatt. 
 
 " Frank, aren't you going to kiss me good-by? " 
 Sophy asked, running down the steps after 
 him. 
 
 " I thought I had." He turned and kissed her 
 with hasty perfunctoriness. " Don't mope while I 
 am gone. Have a good time."
 
 u8 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Mrs. Hollis went sadly back into the house. She 
 sat down for a moment in the study, resting her 
 head in her hands. 
 
 " He cares more for her than he does for me," 
 she thought, " after all these years." 
 
 She opened a drawer and lifting up some quires 
 of note-paper and bundles of neatly tied letters, took 
 out from underneath them a small box containing 
 a photograph. She had come across it accidentally 
 once, and ever since the memory of it so carefully 
 hidden away among her husband's possessions had 
 haunted her. She studied the beautiful face for a 
 long time. The dark eyes looked somberly at her 
 with an unfathomable expression. " No wonder he 
 loved her," she thought with a little sigh, as she put 
 the photograph back in the box. In her youth 
 Sophy Newhall had given Letitia Wyatt the blind 
 adoration that a plain, humble-minded girl gives 
 a handsome, fascinating woman, but as the years 
 went on she had sometimes wondered whether 
 Letitia' s standard of perfection was calculated to 
 make her friends happy in every-day life. " She 
 could not have loved him as I have," she decided ; 
 " he would not have been happy if he had married 
 her, but he will never know it. I love him more and 
 more the older he grows. If he ever lives to be 
 really old, and has any of the incapacities of age, I 
 shall only love him a hundred times more because of
 
 An Old Lover 119 
 
 them." Something told her that this would not 
 have been the case with Letitia Wyatt. 
 
 And meantime as the carriage was taking Mr. 
 Hollis away from his wife, he did not once think of 
 her. He was fond of Sophy, more so than she im- 
 agined or than he realized himself, but he was going 
 East, and his heart was full of the exultant happi- 
 ness of a schoolboy. As the train whirled him over 
 rolling prairies and past cities lying in a cloud of 
 smoky haze, it was of that other woman he was 
 thinking, and of the time when he had loved her, 
 nearly forty years ago. Day changed to night, and 
 night gave place to day, as the train sped eastward, 
 and at each stage of the journey the Reverend 
 Francis Hollis left a few years of his life behind 
 him, until by the time he reached Eppingham he was 
 ridiculously young. When the conductor called out 
 the familiar name with as little emotion as if he had 
 said " Detroit," or " Boston," Mr. Hollis, who was 
 going first to his father-in-law's farm, and would 
 not leave the train until the next station, went out 
 on the platform and looked eagerly to the left. The 
 trees had grown ; they made such a bower of yellow 
 and red that he could only catch a glimpse of the 
 Wyatts' chimneys in the distance. The village, with 
 its white houses and two slender white spires, had 
 changed very little in forty years. To be sure there 
 were evidences of electric-lights and telephones,
 
 I2o John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 and men and women were making their swift way 
 on bicycles through the sleepy streets, but, although 
 these things spoke of progress, they did little to im- 
 pair the general impression of aristocratic conserva- 
 tism and peaceful self-satisfaction. 
 
 When Mr. Hollis reached the Newhall farm his 
 father-in-law was standing on the doorsteps to greet 
 him. It was six years since they had met, a trifling 
 space of time in the life of the octogenarian, and his 
 son-in-law could truthfully say, " You have not 
 changed in the least. You have learned the secret 
 of eternal youth." 
 
 " I guess eternal age would come nearer it," said 
 the old man. " My hair was as white as hair ever 
 gets, six yeafs ago. You've grown fleshy, Frank, 
 and you are getting gray. That don't seem right 
 in a boy like you," he added with a smile. Here 
 was someone at last who understood that Francis 
 Hollis's outer semblance was only a disguise. 
 
 " I suppose you will see the Wyatts when you are 
 stopping with Clara?" Peter Newhall said after 
 supper, as he and his son-in-law were sitting in the 
 prim parlor that was only used on state occa- 
 sions. 
 
 " I thought I should look them up." 
 
 " Lucy Wyatt was here in the summer 'long with 
 her sister Deborah. They came to buy a cow. 
 She's a real sweet woman, Lucy Wyatt."
 
 An Old Lover 121 
 
 " I never could forgive her for the way she 
 treated Alec." 
 
 " I'll own I'd felt kind o' hard to her all these 
 years," said the old man, " but when I come to talk 
 with her and to see her with the same childlike eyes 
 and yellow hair, but so changed in her face, and 
 when I see the tears come into her eyes at the sound 
 of my poor boy's name I felt different. And I 
 thought, ' if she was to blame, I guess she's had her 
 own punishment.' But so far as I could find out 
 from what she didn't say she ain't a great hand to 
 talk it was her folks that made the trouble. I kind 
 o' mistrusted all along that Letitia was at the bottom 
 of it." 
 
 " Letitia ! I am sure she would never use undue 
 influence. She is the most conscientious woman I 
 know." 
 
 " Mebbe you're right. Conscience often makes 
 folks interfere with other people. Not that I blame 
 Letitia. My boy wa'n't a good match for Lucy 
 Wyat.t, according to Letitia' s ideas. Only what 
 riled me was the cold way they treated him. Well, 
 it ain't no use crying over spilt milk. What's past 
 is past. Letitia Wyatt is a good woman. She is 
 a church member, and I haven't any call to find fault 
 with her. Only, sometimes as I sit here alone and 
 the past keeps coming up until it seems more clear 
 than the present, I get to thinking of how it might
 
 122 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 have been. And I say to myself, * What is the 
 Christian religion for ? Is the church a kind of club 
 for good people who have never sinned? Times 
 have changed since the Lord came to save the sheep 
 that was lost, and told the parable of the Prodigal 
 Son. I ain't saying Lucy ought to have married 
 my boy, though when I saw her the other day with 
 that tired, faded look, seeming as if she had passed 
 through life without living, I says to myself, ' Mebbe 
 you'd have been happier here on the old farm, 
 married to my boy, with children to look after you ; 
 you'd have had to work harder, but you'd have had 
 an easier mind,' but that's neither here nor there. 
 If they only treated my boy like a friend instead 
 of the dust under their feet why then he wouldn't 
 have gone West, and there would never have been 
 the trouble with the other woman. But my poor 
 lad got desperate, and he thought (I could always 
 tell what was in his mind same as if I could look 
 into it), it wa'n't any use trying to be a good man 
 so long as there was the fact that he come of 
 farmers' people to stand between him and the girl 
 he loved." 
 
 The picture of Letitia Wyatt that the Reverend 
 Francis Hollis had carried in his heart for so many 
 years was not to be altered by a single detail on 
 account of the remarks of a disappointed old man. 
 Mr. Hollis felt sure that Letitia had used no undue
 
 An Old Lover 123 
 
 influence with Lucy. When he went to stay with 
 his sister, Mrs. Simonds, in the village, he ques- 
 tioned her. Clara was very fond of Letitia, and he 
 wanted to be reinforced in his judgment by her 
 opinion. 
 
 " How are the Wyatts ? " he asked carelessly, on 
 the evening of his arrival. 
 
 " Deborah is always the picture of health, Luc;- 
 is never very strong, and Letitia is just getting over 
 the grippe. You would think by the way the other 
 two go on she had had pneumonia. I tell my hus- 
 band," she added plaintively, " that I wish I had 
 anybody to take as good care of me. I have found 
 that doctors' wives are as badly off as shoemakers' 
 children. You would think with a husband who is 
 a doctor and a daughter who is meaning to be a 
 trained nurse I might have some chance of getting 
 medicine for my cold." 
 
 " Would Letitia be well enough to see me if I 
 were to call there to-morrow? I want to see them 
 all." 
 
 " I don't know. I haven't seen her go out of the 
 house, but maybe she comes downstairs. Frances," 
 Mrs. Simonds inquired, opening the door into the 
 next room, " do you know whether Miss Letitia has 
 come downstairs yet?" 
 
 " She came down yesterday for the first time." 
 
 Mrs. Simonds closed the door and returned to
 
 124 J nn Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 her chair. Her brother found there was no use in 
 trying to lead up to the subject. He was obliged to 
 plunge directly in. " You never heard, did you/' 
 he began confidentially, " that Letitia had anything 
 to do with breaking up that old affair between Lucy 
 and Alec?" 
 
 " I don't know anything about it. I have never 
 been intimate with Letitia. I have lived next door 
 to Letitia Wyatt ever since we moved into this 
 house, and that was twenty-five or twenty-six years 
 ago, I forget which. Frances," she said opening 
 the door again, ''is it twenty-five, or twenty-six 
 years since we moved into this house? " 
 
 " I don't know, mother, it was before I was born." 
 
 " So it was, to be sure, but I thought you might 
 have heard your father say. I remember I was 
 putting Ned into trousers that spring, so it must 
 have been at least twenty-six years ago; well, it 
 doesn't matter just when it was. What were we 
 talking about? It has gone out of my head." 
 
 " Letitia Wyatt." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I have lived next door to her for 
 twenty-six years, and I have never learned to know 
 her any better than the day we moved in. She has 
 a grand air about her that keeps one at a distance. 
 Deborah and Lucy are so different. Mrs. Lutter- 
 worth thinks Letitia is selfish. Mrs. Lutterworth 
 is our minister's wife, oh, vou know that, of
 
 An Old Lover 125 
 
 course, as you are going to preach for Mr. Lutter- 
 worth. Mrs. Lutterworth is one who has to have 
 her fling at everybody. I am very fond of Letitia, 
 I always was. I don't think it is fair to call a 
 woman selfish merely because she has her own way. 
 She is the oldest, and has a right to her way, and it 
 is a very good way. I am sure the doctor has his 
 way in this house, not that I grudge it to him ; some- 
 one has to have the casting vote in every household. 
 Mrs. Lutterworth says Deborah does all the work 
 and Letitia criticizes, but people have different tal- 
 ents in this world, and Letitia makes a fine Regent 
 of the Daughters of the Revolution. We always 
 get on beautifully together, only I can never seem 
 to get close to her." 
 
 When Mr. Hollis made his call at the Wyatts, he 
 was disappointed to find that Letitia was not well 
 enough to see him. Deborah was out, and Lucy 
 brought down an invitation to him from Letitia to 
 take tea with them at six o'clock the next afternoon. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Mr. Hollis," Lucy said, 
 with her half shy, but wholly sincere, manner. 
 
 She was struck with the element of freshness and 
 youth which Frank Hollis had kept. Lucy always 
 liked boys, gray-haired or otherwise, and felt won- 
 derfully at ease with her sister's old lover, while he, 
 on his side, was charmed with her. They talked on 
 general topics and neighborhood gossip for a time.
 
 126 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 In those days when he had first fallen in love with 
 Letitia, Lucy had been a tiny girl, a very captivating 
 child, who had insisted that he should hold her on 
 his knee and tell her stories. At last they began to 
 talk of those far-away times. 
 
 " I never told stories to any child but you," he 
 said. " Somehow they are not in my line. You 
 gave me to understand you liked fairy-tales best, 
 but I could never invent a fairy-tale to save my 
 soul." 
 
 " You used to tell me delightful stories of what 
 you did when you were a little boy." 
 
 " Did I ? It seems like a fairy-tale now to think 
 that I ever was a little boy. Youth is a good thing. 
 I wish when we had it we ever knew how good a 
 thing it is." 
 
 " I wish so too, with all my heart." 
 
 Alec was so strongly present in Lucy's mind that 
 it was only by an effort that she could prevent her- 
 self from saying his name. She hastily changed 
 the subject and spoke of Frances Simonds, and of 
 her desire to be a trained nurse. 
 
 Mr. Hollis said that in his opinion an only 
 daughter could find enough to do at home. 
 
 " Frances has her father's talent for medicine," 
 said Lucy, " and I am glad she is going to lead an 
 independent life. Her plan is to go through the 
 training-school, and then come home to help him."
 
 An Old Lover 127 
 
 " And meanwhile her poor mother will miss her 
 sadly." 
 
 " Yes, for two years. Someone must make a 
 sacrifice, and why should it not be Mrs. Simonds, 
 who has lived her life, instead of Frances, who has 
 hers before her? I can't tell you how strongly I 
 feel on the subject of girls asserting their individu- 
 ality." 
 
 He looked at the gentle woman before him who 
 had never in her whole life asserted hers. 
 
 " I wish you had felt like that when you were 
 twenty," he burst out. 
 
 " Sometimes I think the sin of not daring to do, 
 the sin of quiescence, is the greatest sin of all in the 
 Lord's eyes," she returned impulsively. 
 
 The barriers of conventionality were down. 
 Francis Hollis was to Lucy a voice from her lost 
 youth, and she was to him a woman who had known 
 sorrow and needed to be comforted. 
 
 " You must not feel like that. You have nothing 
 to reproach yourself with," he said hastily, his past 
 condemnation wholly forgotten. 
 
 " I reproach myself for not having been true to 
 the best that was in me." 
 
 " You were so young, you naturally took the 
 advice of others older and wiser than yourself." 
 
 " That does not clear me from responsibility. 
 We cannot put our sins off on other people. I have
 
 128 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 grown to know this lately. I gave up a friend be- 
 cause I hadn't the courage to be loyal to him. ' 
 
 " Poor Alec ! He hadn't the strength of will to 
 be true to you, but he always loved you dearly." 
 
 They were interrupted by the ringing of a bell. 
 That bell seemed to Lucy like the symbol of her 
 whole life. She started to her feet, Bridget was 
 out and Letitia needed her. 
 
 " Wait a minute," Mr. Hollis said peremptorily. 
 " We shall never have such a chance as this again. 
 There is so much I want to tell you. Letitia won't 
 mind if you go up five minutes later." 
 
 She hesitated and looked uneasily at the clock. 
 
 " I was going to say that Sophy took care of her 
 brother in his last illness, and he spoke so often of 
 you, of what you had been to him, and of what he 
 might have been if you had loved him. I am not 
 trying to excuse him, he made a terrible fiasco of 
 life, poor fellow, but in his defence it can be 
 said " 
 
 The bell sounded again. This time there were 
 three quick impatient rings. 
 
 " I must go to Letitia," she said. 
 
 " I thought he never would leave," Letitia com- 
 plained as Lucy entered the room. " It seems he 
 doesn't know when to go any better than he used to. 
 He has been here forty minutes by the clock. I 
 didn't suppose he would stay when he found I
 
 An Old Lover 129 
 
 couldn't see him, especially as we asked him to tea 
 to-morrow. I ought to have had my eggnog at four 
 and it is twenty minutes past. I would not have 
 rung for you, but I began to feel really faint, and 
 hopeless as to his ever going. What did you talk 
 about ? " 
 
 " Oh, the weather, and politics and the neigh- 
 bors, and about Frances being a trained nurse." 
 
 " Well, run along now, and make me my egg- 
 nog." 
 
 When Lucy brought it up fluffy with the lightly 
 beaten egg, her sister said, " You are very good to 
 do this for me, dear. I like your eggnogs better 
 than Bridget's; they are lighter." 
 
 She tasted it. " It is perfectly delicious, only I 
 should say that you forgot the salt." 
 
 " I did," Lucy owned ruefully. " I'll run down 
 and get it." 
 
 " Never mind. I don't want to wait. It is very 
 good without the salt. I merely reminded you of 
 it for another time. Tell me, is Frank Hollis very 
 much changed ? " she asked, when her hunger was 
 appeased. 
 
 " He has grown stout and gray, and he is rather 
 bald, but he seemed just the same person inside." 
 
 " Inside ? What a strange girl you are ! " 
 
 " I mean that his being gray and middle-aged 
 seems an accident. He is young at heart." 
 9
 
 130 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " If there is one thing that I dislike more than 
 another, it is your young, middle-aged person," said 
 Letitia. " It is a great deal more dignified to adapt 
 oneself to the inevitable. I have been making my 
 plans for to-morrow night. Deborah is so set she 
 will be sure to oppose me, and we shall have to use 
 a great deal of tact. I do wish she would consent 
 tc let me get pink shades for the candlesticks ; how- 
 ever, our candlesticks are not just the right kind for 
 them. I want Frank Hollis to see that we have not 
 stood still while the world has moved, and I am 
 going to borrow Laura Macauley's candlesticks and 
 pink shades." 
 
 " Mr. Hollis is the most informal sort of person," 
 Lucy affirmed. " I don't believe he would care or 
 even notice how the table looked." 
 
 " He would take in the general effect. I want 
 quail on toast for tea. Deborah does not care for 
 quail, but they are the proper thing. Laura always 
 has them, and I am very fond of quail. We will 
 get half a dozen, and then there will be two left 
 that you and I can have for our dinner the next day. 
 Here comes Deborah. Be sure to back me up, 
 dear." 
 
 Deborah stoutly refused to borrow Laura Macau- 
 ley's candlesticks. 
 
 " The idea of making a splurge for Frank Hol- 
 lis ! " she exclaimed. " It is absurd ! And as for
 
 An Old Lover 131 
 
 having quail on toast for tea, men never like such 
 light fare. He would a great deal rather have cold 
 beef and baked potatoes." 
 
 Letitia had her way in the end, as usual, but it was 
 only after a wearing discussion, and she was 
 obliged to despatch Lucy to the Macauleys' for the 
 candlesticks. 
 
 When the long-expected hour came, and Frank 
 Hollis entered his old friend's house, with the de- 
 lightful prospect of a whole evening spent in her 
 society, it was Deborah who greeted him, for Leti- 
 tia had not yet come down. It was a chilly day, 
 and all the windows were closed in the cheerful par- 
 lor, and a fire was burning on the' hearth. The 
 room felt close, and Mr. Hollis glanced involun- 
 tarily at the thermometer, which stood at seventy- 
 six. 
 
 " It is frightfully hot," Deborah observed sympa- 
 thetically. " I will open the windows wide for a 
 moment. Letitia and I are like Jack Sprat and his 
 wife. She does not like a breath of air, and I feel 
 as if I were going to have an attack of apoplexy 
 without it. As I have never had one, and as she has 
 frequently taken cold, we keep the windows shut. 
 Frank, don't sit down in that chair, that is Mr. 
 Gray's." Then, as he looked mystified, she added : 
 " Mr. Gray is our parlor boarder, and the chief 
 ruler of the family. We have to keep an especial
 
 132 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 chair for him, for his gray hairs are not fastened in 
 as firmly as mine are. Come here, Mr. Gray, and 
 let me introduce you to an old friend," and she took 
 her cat up from the hearth-rug and gave his paw 
 gravely to Frank Hollis. " Here comes Letitia," 
 she added presently. " Shut the windows, quick, 
 Frank." 
 
 How often he had listened in this very room to 
 those light footsteps on the stairs which had been 
 the prelude to the entrance of the most beautiful 
 girl he had ever known. He could see her now 
 with her dark eyes and glorious dark hair, and her 
 tall graceful figure. He remembered vividly the 
 occasional haughty inclination of her head which 
 was more than counterbalanced by her charming 
 smile. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you, Mr. Hollis," Letitia 
 said, as she shook hands with him cordially. 
 
 For one moment her hair so thickly streaked with 
 gray and her colorless complexion gave him a sharp 
 sense of pain ; after that he was ready to admit that 
 she was still a handsome woman. She had the same 
 slender figure, and if the haughty inclination of her 
 head seemed to be more habitual with her than 
 when she was a girl, and the smile to have grown 
 less frequent, it was no less gracious when it 
 came. 
 
 " Haven't the windows been opened in this
 
 An Old Lover 133 
 
 room? " was Letitia's first question. She fixed her 
 eyes on guilty Deborah. 
 
 " Only for a minute." 
 
 " I feel the dampness. I am sorry to be so 
 troublesome, but I shall have to ask you to put on 
 another stick of wood and to get me my white Chud- 
 dah shawl." 
 
 Lucy came in just then, and after a few minutes 
 they went out into the dining-room. Mr. Hollis 
 was struck by the modern air of the table, with the 
 four silver candlesticks and their pink shades, 
 while the lettuce with a French dressing and the 
 quail on toast were an equal surprise to him. He 
 was very hungry, and felt obtrusively masculine as 
 he seated himself between Letitia and Deborah, and 
 tried to assume an indifference to food that he did 
 not feel. As the meal proceeded it was evident to 
 the Reverend Francis Hollis that there was to be 
 nothing noteworthy in his conversation with Letitia 
 until they were alone. Deborah did most of the 
 talking, and with her ready wit and piquant figures 
 of speech was always amusing. He wondered she 
 had never impressed him more in the old days. 
 
 " Will you have another quail ? " Miss Deborah 
 asked him, when a discussion on Anti-Imperialism 
 had begun to languish. 
 
 Something in Letitia's expression warned him 
 that Deborah's question had been indiscreet, and
 
 134 J nn Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 that he ought to reply in the negative, but as there 
 were two more on the platter and he was accustomed 
 tc a late dinner, he found himself saying, " I will. 
 I feel very apologetic, bringing my man's appetite 
 in among all you ladies." 
 
 " Frank, you are a great comfort to me," said 
 Miss Deborah. " I have a man's appetite myself, 
 and quail never satisfies it, but I couldn't ask for 
 cold beef for myself alone. Bridget, please bring 
 in some slices of cold beef for Mr. Hollis and me." 
 
 Letitia's face told him plainly that he would write 
 himself out of her good books if he helped himself 
 to cold beef; nevertheless he went boldly over to 
 Deborah's side. He remembered one or two occa- 
 sions in their childhood when he and Deborah had 
 been partners in scrapes, long before he had fallen 
 in love with Letitia. Letitia, he remembered, had 
 been rather an aggravating little girl. Frank and 
 Deborah joked merrily and talked of their childhood 
 as they ate the cold beef. It seemed symbolical 
 of hearty good cheer and lack of pretension. He 
 was sure that those candlesticks with their pink 
 shades had never emanated from Deborah's brain. 
 Letitia had grown silent. She delicately played 
 with her salad and toyed with her quail. He knew 
 she was displeased with him. Letitia's silence had 
 always been a more formidable weapon than the 
 open anger of other women. How handsome she
 
 An Old Lover 135 
 
 looked ! She had a little color now, and he was be- 
 ginning to like her gray hair. 
 
 When tea was over the sisters slipped away one 
 at a time, just as they had done in the old days 
 when there had been twice as many of them, and 
 Francis Hollis found himself alone with Letitia. 
 He longed to get close to her inner self, and to know 
 what the years, that on the whole had been kinder 
 to him than he deserved, had brought her, but she 
 continued to keep him at arm's length. He had 
 never felt near her, even when his love was the 
 greatest, but then he had supposed this was because 
 of his inferiority. Now he was puzzled. Those 
 beautiful eyes with their unfathomable expression 
 suggested a deep nature. He felt that she was too 
 reserved to confide in anyone; and that she had 
 passed through childhood and youth to middle-age, 
 a solitary figure, asking neither advice nor sym- 
 pathy. 
 
 They discussed recent literature for a time, 
 but merely grazed the outside of things. Then they 
 spoke of old friends, in a conventional way. At last 
 by devious paths he brought the conversation back 
 to their youth. 
 
 " Those were the good days," he stated. " I 
 never see a young man just starting out in life that 
 I don't feel a great sense of envy." 
 
 " I see no reason to regret youth," said Letitia,
 
 136 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 leaning back gracefully, and drawing her white 
 shawl about her. " Youth is a time of strain and 
 stress, when we long for the impossible. As we 
 grow older, if we are moderately unselfish, we find 
 our interest centering in other people. Middle-age 
 is a far more restful time of life." 
 
 " You were always reasonable, Letitia. For my- 
 self, I would give anything in the world to be young 
 again." 
 
 " I can understand feeling so if one has wasted 
 one's opportunities, but when people have done use- 
 ful work in the world and have as little to regret as 
 you and I have, why is not one period of life as satis- 
 fying as another? " 
 
 " Why? " he cried sharply. " Because men and 
 women never enjoy the limitations of age. They 
 merely accept them and try to make the best of them. 
 It is all very well for us now, but ten or twenty years 
 hence how will it be? Do you mean to tell me in 
 serious earnest that you would as lief be seventy as 
 seventeen? " 
 
 " I can't tell how I shall feel at seventy. I only 
 know that I have never come to the time yet when 
 life has not seemed desirable." 
 
 The precious moments were slipping by, and 
 Francis Hollis still had that baffled feeling. 
 
 " By the way, how is your father-in-law? " Leti- 
 tia asked presently. " I always liked old Mr. New-
 
 An Old Lover 137 
 
 hall. He is an example of what a contented period 
 old age may be, and yet he has had his trials." 
 
 " Yes. I have often wished," he added impul- 
 sively, " that his greatest trial had been spared him. 
 I wish your sister Lucy had married Alec. She 
 would have been the making of him." 
 
 " You wish my sister Lucy had married a man 
 like Alec New-hall ? " Miss Letitia lost all her in- 
 difference and sat up very straight, her eyes bright, 
 a delicate color in her cheeks." 
 
 " Yes. It was because he thought she had been 
 playing with him that he grew reckless." 
 
 " I do not agree with you. A man who was so 
 weak would have shown his weakness after mar- 
 riage. I have never ceased to thank Providence for 
 my sister's fortunate escape. There are some things 
 no woman can ever forgive." 
 
 Miss Letitia disliked even to touch on so delicate 
 a topic. She thought it in extremely poor taste for 
 Francis Hollis to have introduced the subject. 
 
 " I cannot even understand a man like Alec New- 
 hall," she said coldly. 
 
 " No," said Frank Hollis slowly, " I don't sup- 
 pose you can." 
 
 In that moment with a flash of revelation, he real- 
 ized the narrowness of a woman's point of view 
 when she is shut away from any vital contact with 
 the world. He had a mad desire to tell Letitia
 
 138 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Wyatt a few brutal facts. She had gone placidly 
 through life with eyes closed to its real significance. 
 He did not go so far as to wonder if he had over- 
 estimated her in the old days; her personal charm 
 was too great for that, but he was sure her stagnant 
 existence had failed to develop her best powers. 
 Had she married him and led the active life of the 
 wife of a minister, having every gift she possessed 
 brought in play, as had been the case with Sophy, 
 she would have been a more sympathetic woman 
 now. And yet he could not imagine her engaging 
 in all the homely drudgery that had fallen to 
 Sophy's lot, and neither could he fancy her comfort- 
 ing the sick and fallen, getting close to the hearts of 
 the humblest and most sinful men and women. 
 
 Letitia glanced surreptitiously at the clock. It 
 was a quarter of ten. She had not sat up so late 
 since her illness. She began to realize that the 
 evening had been a strain, and wished that Deborah 
 or Lucy would come to her assistance. " So few 
 men know when they have stayed long enough," 
 was her mental comment. 
 
 " It has been the greatest pleasure to see you, 
 Frank," she said, hoping that he would take this as 
 a hint to go. " I trust that it will not be another 
 twenty years before we meet, but if it is I think I 
 can promise to show you how happy one can be at 
 eighty."
 
 An Old Lover 139 
 
 " I fancy you will always be contented, Letitia." 
 
 " It is no credit to me. I am fortunate in in- 
 heriting my mothers disposition." 
 
 He rose. " I have enjoyed the evening ex- 
 tremely. It has been so good to see you again. 
 You have changed very little in twenty years." 
 
 Letitia wished that she could return the com- 
 pliment. In her heart of hearts she did not won- 
 der that Francis Hollis disliked growing old. It 
 must be a great trial to be so stout and bald. 
 
 Hearing the front door open Deborah and Lucy 
 came to bid their guest good-night. Deborah 
 dashed madly forward and seized her cat just as he 
 was about to make a bold strike for freedom and slip 
 unobserved through the door. 
 
 "Letitia Wyatt!" she exclaimed. "If I hadn't 
 been here you would have let Mr. Gray out, and 
 heaven only knows whether he ever would have 
 come back. I don't see how you can be so thought- 
 less." 
 
 She took up the cat and stroked him lov- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Dear, good old friends," Mr. Hollis said to 
 himself, as he closed their hospitable door. " It has 
 been a pleasure to see them again." 
 
 Nevertheless it was a relief to get out into the 
 broader atmosphere of a man's world. 
 
 And if his journey East had been undertaken with
 
 140 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 the enthusiasm of a schoolboy, and his return was 
 made in the chastened frame of mind of middle-age, 
 there were compensations. He was going home to 
 dear Sophy.
 
 A NEIGHBORHOOD ROMANCE
 
 VII 
 A NEIGHBORHOOD ROMANCE 
 
 " TV /TY brother, Mark Henderson, is coming to 
 .1. V JL s t av with me next week," Mrs. Lutter- 
 
 vvorth announced to the reading-club. 
 The reading-club tried to look properly sympa- 
 thetic, but they had heard of the intended visits of 
 this brother so many times that they had grown 
 sceptical. The Reverend Ezra Lutterworth and his 
 wife had been settled in Eppingham for seven years. 
 Mr. Henderson had come, in the early days of his 
 brother-in-law's pastorate, intending to stay a week, 
 but had been unexpectedly called away at the end of 
 forty-eight hours, and although his sister had urged 
 a repetition of the visit every summer, he was sure 
 to find some good reason for not coming, and con- 
 tented himself instead with joining the Lutterworths 
 at the seashore for a part of their vacation. This 
 year, however, he was going to Europe for six 
 months, and his sister had peremptorily insisted on 
 the visit. 
 
 J 43
 
 144 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Ladies," she said, " what on earth I am going 
 to do with Mark on my hands for a whole week I 
 don't know. He is the kind of man who requires an 
 enormous amount of amusement, and then he Is used 
 to his glass of wine every day, and Mr. Lutterworth, 
 as you know, will not allow wine in his house." 
 
 " And he is entirely right," said Miss Deborah 
 Wyatt staunchly. 
 
 " Oh, of course he is right, but being brought up 
 as I was in a house where wine flowed as freely as 
 water I can see Mark's side too. I want him to real- 
 ize how delightful Eppingham is," she continued. 
 " You know he has never really stayed here and he 
 fancies " 
 
 " It is easy to see what he fancies," broke in Miss 
 Letitia Wyatt, " from the fact that he has never re- 
 peated his visit." 
 
 " Does he like dancing? " Laura Macauley asked. 
 " I have been longing to give a dancing-party ever 
 since we have widened our piazza.. It would be so 
 charming hung with Japanese lanterns." 
 
 " He used to delight in dancing, but Mark is get- 
 ting on now. Let me see, he must be thirty-six. 
 Mark is an irresponsible sort of person who never 
 means to marry," Mrs. Lutterworth went on, shat- 
 tering the castles in the air that the older women 
 were building for their young friends. " He has 
 led a roving life and enjoys it. He is a delightful
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 145 
 
 companion, a thoughtless, careless sort of fellow, but 
 somehow you can never be angry with him." 
 
 " I haven't the least idea he will come," said 
 Laura Macauley, as she and Frances Simonds 
 walked along together after the club, " but I am 
 going to have my party just the same. I invite you 
 now, Frances." 
 
 " Thank you. I hate parties, because I dance so 
 badly." 
 
 " You must come just the same, if it is only to 
 look on." 
 
 Mrs. Lutterworth herself was surprised when her 
 brother actually arrived on Thursday evening, only 
 two days later than he had planned. 
 
 " Sally," he said, giving his sister an affectionate 
 hug, " it is awfully good to see you." 
 
 Mrs. Lutterworth was never called Sally by any- 
 one else; she was surprised to find how much she 
 liked it. The name seemed a part of her gay, care- 
 less youth. 
 
 " You manage to live without me pretty comfor- 
 tably for long periods," she observed drily. 
 
 " Ah, Sally, you don't know the agony I suffer," 
 he exclaimed melodramatically. 
 
 " Get along with you, you silly boy ! I believe 
 you will never grow up. By the way, there is a 
 kind young lady who is going to give a dancing- 
 party for you." 
 10
 
 146 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " A dancing-party for me! Well, I declare! Dew 
 tell, as you say in this part of the world. I want ter 
 know!" 
 
 " She is giving it partly for you, and partly to 
 show off her new piazza. And we talk very correct- 
 ly in this part of the world I must tell you. We are 
 intelligent. We read Darwin and Herbert Spen- 
 cer." 
 
 " The deuce you do ! I beg your pardon, Sally. 
 You don't mean to say I've got to go to this con- 
 founded party, do you, in this hot weather? You 
 allow people to say ' confound it,' don't you ? under 
 this Evangelical roof? To think that you, of all 
 people, Sally, should have married a parson." 
 
 " Of course you've got to go to it. It comes off 
 to-morrow night, and all Eppingham will be present, 
 the old and middle-aged as well as the young. I 
 assure you a dancing-party is a rare thing in Ep- 
 pingham, and no consideration of age keeps us at 
 home. Those of us whose dancing days are over 
 look on and watch the others. 
 
 " I'll look on and watch the others," he declared. 
 
 " Your dress really looks very nice, Frances," 
 Mrs. Simonds observed to her daughter on the even- 
 ing of the party. " Ned," she said to her son, " did 
 you ever see Frances look so well ? "
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 147 
 
 Ned gazed at his sister in the critical manner of 
 brothers. 
 
 " She does have more style than usual," he ad- 
 mitted. 
 
 " It is all on account of those dear Wyatts," Fran- 
 ces informed him. " Miss Lucy fairly insisted I 
 should have a new gown. She chose this for me, 
 and they, all helped me make it." 
 
 " I thought lilac was much too old for Frances," 
 Mrs. Simonds remarked in her usual plaintive tones, 
 " but Lucy said the color suited her complexion, and 
 that she was young enough to carry it off. Good- 
 by, dear. Have a good time." 
 
 " I don't expect to have a good time, mother. 
 You know I am always a wall-flower, but I have 
 made up my mind not to stay away from things on 
 that account. One can get some fun just from 
 looking on." 
 
 " To think that I should have a daughter like 
 you," mourned Mrs. Simonds. " When I was a girl 
 1 used to dance every dance, and I had to divide 
 most of them; but you are just like your father. It 
 seems as if it was more than I could bear that you 
 have made up your mind to be a trained nurse." 
 
 Frances waved a good-by to her mother. She 
 was in high spirits, and amused her brother on the 
 way to the Macauleys' with an imaginary conversa- 
 tion between herself and the lion of the evening.
 
 148 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Frances, why is it you never have a word to say 
 to any of the fellows who come to the house, when 
 you talk like a blue streak when we are by our- 
 selves? " Ned asked her. 
 
 " I'm scared." 
 
 " Scared ! And yet you are planning to be a 
 trained nurse ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid of young men. I think by the time I 
 am fifty I shall begin to enjoy life." 
 
 Ned Simonds was a sufficiently good brother to 
 ask his sister to waltz, although he knew she did not 
 waltz well, but his magnanimity was not great 
 enough to bear in silence the contretemps that hap- 
 pened, for, owing to her difficulty in reversing, they 
 stumbled against Mr. Henderson, who was dancing 
 with Laura Macauley, and after a fearful moment 
 of uncertainty found themselves reclining on the 
 highly polished floor. 
 
 " I'm ashamed of you," her brother said, in tones 
 that reached the other couple. " If I hadn't sup- 
 posed you could do better than that I wouldn't have 
 asked you." 
 
 Henderson's chivalrous soul protested against 
 such a public castigation. He turned to look at the 
 victim. " No one but a brother could talk like 
 that," he observed to his partner. 
 
 " Yes, he is her brother. I can't think how she 
 came to be so stupid."
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 149 
 
 The situation interested Henderson, and when the 
 waltz was over, he contrived to seat his partner next 
 to Frances. 
 
 " You don't care," Ned was saying. " You don't 
 mind making me the laughing-stock of everybody, 
 to say nothing of yourself." 
 
 " Of course I care," she protested. " You don't 
 suppose I did it on purpose to amuse myself; but I 
 don't think it is worth while to say anything more 
 about it. It isn't as if I had committed a crime." 
 
 " Is there anyone you would like me to present 
 you to ? " Ned Simonds asked Henderson suavely 
 later in the evening. 
 
 " Yes, I should like to be introduced to the girl in 
 lilac." 
 
 "My sister?" he inquired in surprise. "She 
 isn't a good dancer, as you may have noticed." 
 
 " I want to apologize to her for having been so 
 clumsy as to knock her down." 
 
 " Oh, but it was entirely her fault. She isn't used 
 to reversing." 
 
 " I ought to have been quick enough to get out of 
 the way." 
 
 Frances, in her corner behind the palms, was 
 looking out on life with that keen expression of in- 
 terest and amused comprehension that went far to 
 redeem the plainness of her face. A party was to 
 her a world in miniature, where character showed
 
 150 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 itself with surprising distinctness. There was Miss 
 Lucy, in a pale gray silk gown, crushed into a cor- 
 ner, and when she was at last discovered, passing on 
 her plate of salad and croquettes to Mrs. Simonds. 
 Miss Letitia, on the other hand, who was command- 
 ingly in evidence, gave up her plate for quite a differ- 
 ent reason, demanding creamed halibut with her salad 
 instead of croquettes. As for her dear Miss Deb- 
 orah she had joined the ranks of the men and gone 
 boldly to the dining-room, returning with two well- 
 filled plates, one destined for Letitia, the other for 
 Lucy. 
 
 " My sister, Miss Simonds, Mr. Henderson." 
 
 The words seemed to come to Frances from that 
 land of mocking fantasy where she and her brother 
 had been sojourning on their way to the Macauleys'. 
 She looked up and saw Mr. Henderson's tall, slight 
 figure looming above her, and his laughing dark 
 eyes looking down at her. 
 
 " Miss Simonds," a pleasant voice said, " I've 
 been telling your brother I owe you an apology for 
 my stupidity earlier in the evening. Won't you let 
 me make it out on the piazza? It is stifling here. 
 It would be such a pity if Miss Macauley's new piaz- 
 za wasn't appreciated. Let me find a seat for you 
 and I will get something for you to eat." 
 
 He had the easy assurance of a man of the world, 
 and Frances soon found herself talking to him as
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 151 
 
 unaffectedly as she talked to her brother. She did 
 not altogether like Mr. Henderson, but he amused 
 her. After a time she said, " I wish I knew what 
 you think of us of Eppingham, I mean, we must 
 bore you so." 
 
 " Miss Simonds, let me confide to you that I have 
 never been bored for more than quarter of an hour 
 at a time in my whole life." 
 
 She laughed merrily. " I can quite believe you. 
 My brother could say the same. Whenever, 
 through any chain of untoward circumstances, bores 
 come to our house, Ned vanishes. I can't say I have 
 never been bored for more than quarter of an hour. 
 He goes, and I stay." 
 
 " And you think I am like your brother ? " 
 
 " I am sure of it." 
 
 " Miss Simonds, you have unusual penetration." 
 
 " I have so much penetration that I am going to 
 ask you to take me into the house to Miss Lucy 
 Wyatt. I want to leave you before the quarter of an 
 hour is up." 
 
 He laughed. She was refreshingly original. " If 
 you want to get rid of me, Miss Simonds, you are 
 not going about it in the right way," he observed. 
 " The music is beginning. I shall not be satisfied 
 until you have given me a waltz." 
 
 " No," she said, at once shrinking into her shell. 
 " I can't do that."
 
 152 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " You not only can, but you will, for you owe it to 
 me to make public amends for my awkwardness." 
 
 " Your awkwardness ! " she said with a gay little 
 laugh. 
 
 Henderson was as good a dancer as Ned Si- 
 monds, and he had greater patience. Frances did 
 not reverse easily, but she was pliable, and quick to 
 fall in with his suggestions ; the result was that they 
 made the tour of the parlor twice with every out- 
 ward appearance of success, giving the impression 
 that the accident earlier in the evening might have 
 happened to anyone. When the dance was over 
 Frances asked to be left next Miss Lucy Wyatt. 
 
 " Miss Lucy, can you go to drive with me to-mor- 
 row afternoon to get wild-flowers to arrange at 
 church ? " Frances asked, as Mr. Henderson was 
 borne off by Miss Macauley to be introduced to Ber- 
 tha Hall, a dark-eyed girl who was resplendent in a 
 low-necked gown. 
 
 " I shall be very glad to go, dear. How beauti- 
 fully you waltz," was the comforting remark of this 
 always tactful friend. 
 
 Greatly to the surprise of Frances, Mr. Hender- 
 son came back before the evening was over, and pro- 
 posed that she should take a turn with him through 
 the garden. " It is a pity to waste such a night, 
 other people are out there," he said, looking towards 
 a group of light dresses with the usual smaller
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 153 
 
 sprinkling of black coats. Frances was so much 
 amused to find herself walking in the garden with 
 the hero of the evening that she could not refrain 
 from giving her brother a mischievous glance as they 
 passed him. She found Ned's face an interesting 
 study. 
 
 " This is much better than that hot room," Hen- 
 derson said, as they sat down on a bench. " I am 
 afraid my dancing days are over." 
 
 " Mine have never begun. I hate parties, but that 
 is only because I am not suited to them." 
 
 " What do you like?" 
 
 " Things you would find very stupid." 
 
 " I am interested in nearly everything." 
 
 " I like making bandages, and giving medicine, 
 and dressing wounds," she said demurely. " That 
 is my idea of having a thoroughly good time. I am 
 going into a hospital next winter." 
 
 " Dear me! How you must enjoy life! If little 
 trifles of that sort mean a good time to you, how 
 overwhelmingly delightful you must find the great 
 pleasures of life." 
 
 " What is your idea of a thoroughly good time? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " You will despise me when I tell you. It is do- 
 ing nothing, in a heavenly place with a congenial 
 companion. Drifting about in a gondola in Venice, 
 for instance, or gliding over the Italian Lakes, or, I
 
 154 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 might even like driving through these country 
 roads." 
 
 " I will tell Mrs. Lutterworth. I have no doubt 
 Mr. Lutterworth will take you with him when he 
 makes some of his distant parish calls." 
 
 He looked at her to see if she were in earnest. 
 
 " I did not have my brother-in-law in mind," he 
 informed her. " I was thinking how pleasant it 
 would be if you and the lady with the yellow hair, 
 Miss I forget her name." 
 
 " Miss Lucy Wyatt." 
 
 " Oh, yes. I thought if you would invite me to 
 go after wild-flowers with you to-morrow, it would 
 be what I should like." 
 
 " I am so glad. I have always wanted to take 
 somebody with us who would get out and pick the 
 flowers. Now if you go, I can sit in the carriage 
 with Miss Lucy while you do all the work. I will 
 get father to let me have the carryall, and perhaps 
 Mrs. Lutterworth would like to come too." 
 
 "Well, Frances, did you have a good time?" 
 Mrs. Simonds asked, coming out of her bedroom as 
 Frances and Ned went by the door. 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Henderson was very devoted. He 
 waltzed with me and took me out into the garden." 
 
 " Don't joke, dear. It makes me so unhappy to
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 155 
 
 know the things didn't really happen. Did you have 
 a very stupid time? " 
 
 " Ask Ned if I am joking." 
 
 " He really did devote himself to her most of the 
 evening. They got on like a breeze. I can't think 
 what has come over her." 
 
 " He invited himself to go after wild flowers with 
 Miss Lucy and me to-morrow," Frances announced. 
 " It shows how hard up he is for amusement, poor 
 man." 
 
 The next afternoon Miss Letitia and Miss Deb- 
 orah watched the little party drive off with feelings 
 of the truest interest and keenest satisfaction. 
 
 " I do wish that pleasant fellow would take a 
 fancy to Frances," Miss Deborah said to her sister. 
 
 " My dear, she isn't at all the sort of girl men fall 
 in love with." 
 
 " I know it. It only shows how little sense they 
 have." 
 
 " I am glad she is enjoying herself for once in her 
 life like other girls. It will do her good," said Miss 
 Letitia. 
 
 When Lucy came back at night her sisters ques- 
 tioned her eagerly. 
 
 " Is Mr. Henderson as delightful as he looks ? " 
 Miss Letitia asked. 
 
 " Yes. He and Frances sat on the front seat, so 
 we didn't have much talk with him. I never saw
 
 156 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Frances in such good spirits. She did not seem in 
 the least afraid of him. I thought she was going to 
 insist on his picking the swamp honeysuckle without 
 any help, but she relented. In one place we all got 
 out and tied the horse. It was a glorious afternoon. 
 They are planning a picnic for Monday, just a little 
 one. You would both of you like to go, wouldn't 
 you? " 
 
 " I should," said Miss Deborah. 
 
 "Are all the Lutterworth children going?" in- 
 quired Miss Letitia. 
 
 " I think so." 
 
 " Heaven preserve us ! I dislike a crowd of chil- 
 dren, and I am not fond of eating my meals out-of- 
 doors, but if you are both going I don't want to be 
 left behind." 
 
 The day of the picnic Mr. Henderson conducted 
 himself in such a way as to give a subject for con- 
 versation to his sister and Miss Letitia Wyatt. He 
 appropriated Frances as calmly as if she had been an 
 old friend, and ignored both Laura Macauley and 
 Bertha Hall. When Frances took two of the Lut- 
 terworth children into the woods to get ferns, he 
 followed, and whatever she did he contrived to be 
 near her. 
 
 " Your brother seems to have taken a great fancy 
 to Frances," Miss Letitia began, when she and Mrs. 
 Lutterworth were left on the hillside together.
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 157 
 
 " My brother is always taking a great fancy to 
 some girl. He has no more sense of responsibility, 
 or the fitness of things than a small boy. If he likes 
 a woman he sees no reason why he should not be 
 with her sixteen hours out of the twenty-four. I 
 should have to take him to task if he were going to 
 stay longer, but his week will be up on Thurs- 
 day." 
 
 When Mrs. Lutterworth discovered that her 
 brother intended to prolong his visit, she felt it nec- 
 essary to speak to him plainly. 
 
 " Mark," she began, " I always did dislike to in- 
 terfere with your pleasures, but I must tell you that 
 it isn't fair for you to monopolize a girl as you have 
 been doing the last week. I know .you don't care 
 anything for her, and that it is only your way of 
 passing the time, but how can she know it? And if 
 she does, other people do not. She has never had 
 attention and your devotion is enough to turn any 
 girl's head." 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Sally. Miss Simonds has a 
 head that is firmly fastened on her shoulders. She 
 is going into a hospital next winter. This is posi- 
 tively her last chance to amuse herself. She is get- 
 ting a little knowledge of the world through me. It 
 may be useful to her later." 
 
 " I don't see why you like her so much. She is a 
 good girl, and amusing, when you know her well.
 
 158 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 but she isn't pretty, or charming, or especially 
 clever." 
 
 " She is perfectly natural and unaffected. She 
 treats me as if I were a comrade, not a possible ad- 
 mirer, that is why I like her, and she is delightfully 
 unexpected. I never know what she is going to say 
 next" 
 
 " I think you ought to realize, Mark, that people 
 are beginning to talk." 
 
 " Let them talk if they like. Conversation is 
 cheap." 
 
 " Her mother seems to think you may be in ear- 
 nest." 
 
 " Her mother is a fool." 
 
 " That is perfectly true, but it isn't becoming in 
 you to say so. I never suspected that Frances would 
 condescend to indulge in a summer flirtation." 
 
 "A flirtation? Is that what you call it?" He 
 threw back his head and laughed. " I never was 
 talked to so plainly by anyone in my life. A sister 
 isn't a circumstance. Miss Simonds seems to have 
 discovered every hidden fault I have." 
 
 " I can give you plenty of conversation in the 
 same line, if that is what you like." 
 
 " She is so amusing about it. She is as refresh- 
 ing as the east wind. We are going up the moun- 
 tain to-morrow. Her brother and Miss Macauley 
 are coming too."
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 159 
 
 " Well, I wash my hands of you. I have given 
 you warning. It isn't any affair of mine." 
 
 It was just a week later that Mrs. Lutterworth 
 found it necessary to speak to her brother again. 
 
 "When are you going home, Mark?" she in- 
 quired bluntly. " Of course I am delighted to have 
 you stay until you sail, if you are contented here, 
 but I am expecting other guests, and you must give 
 me some idea when I can have your room." 
 
 " I thought I would stay another week if you will 
 keep me, but I can go to the hotel." 
 
 " I think I see myself letting you go to the hotel ! 
 Mark, I wish you would go home to-morrow, for 
 the sake of Miss Simonds." 
 
 " For the sake of Miss Simonds I would much 
 rather stay here." 
 
 "You have no idea how people are talking; on 
 one side you are called a desperate flirt, and are said 
 to be on the road to breaking her heart, on the other 
 you are supposed to be engaged to her." 
 
 " I wish I were. If you will keep me a week 
 longer I hope I shall be." 
 
 " Mark ! " It was twilight, and Mrs. Lutter- 
 worth could not see her brother's expression. 
 " Mark," she repeated, going over to him and taking 
 his hand, " you are not in earnest? " 
 
 He put his head down on her shoulder as he used
 
 160 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 to do when he was a boy, and gave her cool hand a 
 hot pressure. 
 
 " I am in earnest," he said simply. 
 
 " Mark Henderson, you don't mean that you, ir- 
 responsible as the wind, you, who have said over and 
 over again that you should never marry, because you 
 had never seen a woman you would not tire of in six 
 weeks, you don't mean to tell me you are thinking of 
 marrying a country girl with neither beauty, nor 
 charm, nor money? " 
 
 " I mean it, Sally. I mean that I have seen the 
 woman I shall not tire of in six weeks." 
 
 " You will regret it," she said vehemently. " You 
 will live to be bitterly sorry you ever took such a 
 step." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall regret it. I have regretted most 
 things I have done. I am only sure I can't let her 
 go. I should be a different man with her. She is so 
 staunch and true, so loyal, and best of all," he added 
 with a little smile, " she has such a sense of humor. 
 Fancy what it would be to me. Sally, to go through 
 life with someone who would understand all my 
 jokes." 
 
 " I believe if you were dying you would make a 
 joke of it," she said severely. " I beg you won't do 
 anything in a hurry. Promise me that you will go 
 to Europe without telling her how you feel. Write 
 to her while you are gone, if you like, but don't com-
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 161 
 
 mit yourself. You will see things differently when 
 you get away from Eppingham, It is only that you 
 have had so little to do here." 
 
 " Sally, I am going to ask her to marry me. 
 Nothing you say will make any difference." 
 
 The sun was setting, and the river was gray and 
 gold. The firs stood out sharply against the gold of 
 the sky. It was a cool evening suggesting October 
 rather than June, just the evening for a walk, Mrs. 
 Lutterworth said, and she proposed to her husband 
 and brother that they should ask Miss Simonds to 
 go with them. They had taken the walk, and Mrs. 
 Lutterworth had at last succeeded in making Mr. 
 Lutterworth go home with her. They left the two 
 young people sitting on one of the seats that ran 
 along the sides of the bridge. Mr. Lutterworth 
 could see no reason why he should not stay with 
 them. Their society was congenial to him and he 
 was in no hurry to go home; when his wife re- 
 minded him that his sermon was unfinished he 
 turned on her reproachfully, wondering how she 
 could forget that he never wrote in the evening. 
 
 " Do stay with us, Mr. Lutterworth," Frances 
 begged. 
 
 Mark said nothing. 
 
 Mr. Lutterworth was irresolute. It had ended by
 
 162 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 his wife's drawing her arm firmly through his and 
 turning him towards home. 
 
 " Ezra," she said, as soon as they were out of 
 hearing, " your sex are all stupid, but you are posi- 
 tively the most stupid member of it, for a clever 
 man, that I ever came across. Didn't you see that 
 Mark had something especial he wanted to say to 
 Frances ? " 
 
 Mr. Lutterworth had seen nothing, and could 
 hardly believe it when told in plain words. Mrs. 
 Lutterworth had forgotten that her own surprise 
 had been equally great a week ago. She looked back 
 with wistful envy at the two figures outlined against 
 the evening sky. She loved a romance. Her mar- 
 riage had hardly come under that head, and so many 
 years of monotonous living had intervened since 
 the evening when Ezra had asked her to be his wife 
 that, in the retrospect, the occasion seemed more 
 matter-of-fact than it was. She had never felt for 
 her husband the irresistible attraction that drew her 
 to her brother. She could not help reflecting with 
 a sigh what an ideal lover Mark would make. It 
 seemed a pity such romantic possibilities should be 
 wasted on a prosaic girl like Frances Simonds. Mrs. 
 Lutterworth glanced furtively over her shoulder 
 once or twice. The two figures were still side 
 by side. Frances's white waist stood out from 
 its dark surroundings. Mrs. Lutterworth found
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 163 
 
 herself hoping Frances would dress better when she 
 was Mark's wife. How could he, who was so fas- 
 tidious, have fallen in love with a girl for whom 
 evening dress was half the time represented by a 
 clean shirt-waist? 
 
 " Well, Mark, is it all settled?" his sister asked 
 when he came into the house. Then she looked up 
 and noticed his haggard face. 
 
 " You don't mean to tell me " she began. 
 
 " She doesn't care for me. She never had the 
 least idea I was in earnest." 
 
 " That isn't strange, when you never were in 
 earnest before." 
 
 Mark sank wearily into a chair. He was think- 
 ing of the just but altogether intolerable punish- 
 ments in life. 
 
 " She will care for you by and by," his sister as- 
 sured him. " No girl could help it. It is only that 
 this is the first time the idea has entered her mind." 
 
 He shook his head. " She says her one interest in 
 life is to be a trained nurse." 
 
 " Trained fiddlesticks ! " Mrs. Lutterworth ex- 
 claimed contemptuously. " That is the way all 
 girls talk until they fall in love." 
 
 " She told me, too, that I was not at all the man 
 she could care for. I was not enough in earnest. 
 Well, perhaps she is right, but it is a little hard on 
 me."
 
 164 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 A romance was such a rare thing in Eppingham 
 that all the ladies in town felt a personal interest in 
 this one. There had been nothing more pronounced 
 than mild flirtations among the aristocracy since 
 John Forsyth's marriage to Esther Norris, but that 
 was only a pale affair compared to the present ex- 
 citing drama, for no one had suspected John's en- 
 gagement until it was an accomplished fact, whereas 
 now it was rumored on every side that Mark Hen- 
 derson had offered himself to Frances Simonds. 
 Rumor became certainty for the Miss Wyatts when 
 Mrs. Lutterworth came over one evening in the 
 greatest excitement. 
 
 " I shall go crazy if I don't tell somebody what 
 has happened," she began, breathlessly. " You 
 three are the only women in the parish who can 
 keep a secret. Mark has offered himself to Frances, 
 and she has refused him ! " 
 
 "No!" 
 
 " Is it possible?" 
 
 " You don't mean so ! " 
 
 " It is true. I have talked to her like a mother 
 and sister, but I can't make the slightest impression 
 on her. She only sees her side of the question. She 
 wants to be a nurse and help her father." 
 
 " It seems incredible that so plain a girl should 
 have such an exceptionally good offer," said Miss 
 Letitia, "and still more preposterous that she should
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 165 
 
 refuse it. Your brother is rich, well-connected and 
 charming. What more can she ask for ? " 
 
 " She says she never could care for an idle man, 
 as if mere work were the only thing to live for. I 
 have no patience with her. What do you think, 
 Miss Deborah ? " 
 
 " I am sure she is making a great mistake." 
 
 " I wish you would talk to her. You could in- 
 fluence her, if anyone can. She isn't in the least 
 the person I should have chosen for my brother, but 
 I never knew him so upset by anything." 
 
 " Frances," Miss Deborah began abruptly, the 
 next time she and the girl took a walk together, 
 " Mrs. Lutterworth tells me that you have refused 
 her brother." 
 
 Frances gave a little gasp. " I don't know why 
 she should have told you," she said stiffly. 
 
 " No more do I, my dear, but she did. Now, I 
 want to know why you were so foolish. I always 
 thought you were a sensible girl." 
 
 " I had good reasons." 
 
 " In other words, it isn't any of my business. 
 That is true, except that I am more fond of you 
 than of any young girl I know, and I don't want to 
 see you making a mistake." 
 
 Her old friend's eyes were so full of honest affec- 
 tion that Frances was softened. 
 
 " I have never regretted my life," Miss Deborah
 
 166 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 continued. " It has been best for me, but I don't 
 think there is one woman in a hundred who is hap- 
 pier unmarried. I have always been thankful I 
 didn't have a husband. It is bad enough to get 
 yourself through life without having a man tagging 
 along whom ^you've got to lift over all the hard 
 places." 
 
 " That is just the way I feel. As we agree so 
 well, why do you think I am making a mistake? " 
 
 " Your case is different. You haven't sisters to 
 make a home for when you are old, and you and 
 your brother care for such different things that you 
 could never live together, and then I was too prone 
 to see the ridiculous ever to have a love-affair. 
 Men, it must be confessed, are all amusing." 
 
 " Women are amusing, too." 
 
 " Yes, but women are light comedy, whereas men 
 are broad farce." 
 
 " I didn't know what the trouble was before, but 
 I suspect I have too much sense of humor to fall in 
 love." 
 
 " Frances, I am going to talk to you seriously 
 for the first, and probably the last time in my life. 
 When we are young we feel certain we are always 
 going to have plain sailing, and age seems as impos- 
 sible to believe in as death. I have no doubt you are 
 sure you are going to make the best trained nurse in 
 the hospital, that you'll have a straight road to sue-
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 167 
 
 cess, with no pitfalls. You are certain that you are 
 going to help your father, and that you two can 
 show the world what a man and woman can do 
 when they work together. Isn't that about it? " 
 " Yes, only I know there will be hard places." 
 " Well, when you have lived to be my age you 
 will find things never turn out as you expect. You 
 may catch all the diseases in the hospital, and dis- 
 cover after six months that you don't want to be a 
 trained nurse, not that that is probable, for you are 
 made of the right stuff, or, just as you are through 
 the training-school your father may die. Trained- 
 nursing, at best, is a profession you can only keep 
 on with for a few years. The founding of a home 
 and the bringing up of children is the best profes- 
 sion for women ; it is the natural one. Anything 
 else is only best in special cases. Yours is not a 
 special case. Do you not feel Mark Henderson's 
 charm? It seems so unnatural that a young girl 
 shouldn't. I feel it, old as I am." 
 
 Frances hesitated. " Yes, I feel it up to a certain 
 point," she owned at last. " All that is most frivo- 
 lous and worldly in me is charmed. If it were 
 merely the question of a summer vacation; if it 
 were the custom for men and women who were 
 only friends to travel together like brother and 
 sister for a few months I can think of no one 
 who would be a more amusing companion. But
 
 i68 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 for all my life ! " She shivered. " For better, for 
 worse, for richer, for poorer! Miss Deborah, how 
 do women ever make up their minds to do it? 
 Surely you could never advise a girl to marry un- 
 less she were deeply in love, and felt in addition 
 respect for the man who wanted to marry her? " 
 
 " No, Frances, I couldn't, but it seems a great 
 pity; it would be such a good match, and he is so 
 attractive. I can't help hoping you will change your 
 mind." 
 
 It was given to Lucy to put the crowning touch to 
 the arguments in favor of Frances becoming en- 
 gaged to Mark Henderson. Lucy and Frances had 
 taken a long drive in search of wild-flowers. Lucy 
 could not get her courage up sufficiently to broach 
 the subject until they were half way home, and even 
 then she led up to it by halting approaches. She 
 went over at first much of the ground Miss Deborah 
 had traveled, but her point of view was different. 
 She looked at the question from Mark Henderson's 
 side. " Dear," she said at last, " it isn't only what 
 is best for you, but what is best for him. You don't 
 mean to be selfish, but by refusing him you run the 
 risk of spoiling his life." 
 
 Frances gave an expressive shrug of the shoul- 
 ders. " It isn't as if I were the only woman he had 
 ever cared for." 
 
 " Mrs. Lutterworth says the best in him has been
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 169 
 
 touched for the first time. I knew of a case once," 
 Lucy added timidly, " where a man was in love with 
 a woman. He thought she did not love him, and he 
 it ruined his life." 
 
 " Such cases must be rare, and if a man hasn't 
 any more backbone than that he isn't worth worry- 
 ing over." 
 
 " Frances, you have the hardness of youth. I was 
 just as hard once. There are not many compensa- 
 tions for growing older, but one is that we are more 
 charitable ; and our standards change. The sins we 
 can't forgive when we are young seem not so much 
 greater than the sins we never recognized. I am 
 wondering, dear, if you give Mr. Henderson up, 
 how you will feel twenty years later. Life is hard 
 at the best. Few of us make a brilliant success of 
 it. Most of us look back with regret and forward 
 with dread. You will do a little good in the world, 
 good you will hardly recognize, because it will be 
 so mixed with failure ; you will help the sick to get 
 well, often when they would rather die, and you will 
 try to comfort the sorrowing, but for the most part 
 you won't succeed, and after twenty years you will 
 say, ' What is the use of it all ? Of the work, and 
 struggle, and effort? If I could only have back my 
 lost youth ! If I could only be in the sunshine once 
 more with Mark on that glorious June day gathering 
 honeysuckle ! ' Frances, dear, sorrow comes to all ;
 
 170 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 suffering comes, but it is not to all that happiness 
 comes, with outstretched hands ; and you turn aside 
 from it! You, who have the one chance other 
 w r omen have dreamed of and longed for; you, in 
 your arrogant youth, turn lightly away, as if it 
 were a thing of no value. If I could have had the 
 chance you have twenty years ago, I should have 
 grasped it and led a full life. As it is, I can never 
 get over the sense of having missed the one best 
 thing." 
 
 " Dear Miss Lucy," said Frances, as she shyly 
 pressed her friend's hand. 
 
 Lucy was so sure she had made an impression on 
 Frances that she had an exalted feeling for the rest 
 of the day. Lucy was at last beginning to see, she 
 told herself, that personal disappointment was of 
 little consequence, if, by means of it, one could help 
 others. She felt that Frances was taking the ground 
 she did from a mistaken sense of loyalty to her 
 father, and that if he could only be made to advo- 
 cate the marriage, his daughter's tender conscience 
 would be satisfied. It was not an easy thing to dis- 
 cuss such a delicate matter with Dr. Simonds. He 
 was a man with whom Lucy found it difficult to 
 talk on any subject, but she accomplished the task 
 and found him more sympathetic than she had sup- 
 posed so quiet and reserved a man could be. It 
 made her happy to think that, owing to her, two
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 171 
 
 people would be brought together, who otherwise 
 would have drifted apart. 
 
 " Frances," said her father, the evening after 
 Lucy Wyatt's call, " will you come into my office? 
 1 want to have a little talk with you." 
 
 " I am glad I am not a patient," Frances said, as" 
 she seated herself opposite her father, who was in 
 his revolving chair. " I at once feel as if I had some 
 serious trouble of the heart or brain. You seem to 
 be looking down into the depths of my soul." 
 
 " I wish I could look into your soul, Frances. I 
 am afraid I am not so observing of all your symp- 
 toms as I ought to be." 
 
 " Father, what do you mean? " 
 
 He got up and took a turn around the room. 
 Then he sat down again in the revolving-chair. 
 " That man, that Mr. Henderson, who wants to 
 marry you " he began and paused. 
 
 " That man, that Mr. Henderson," she mimicked. 
 " Well, what of him? It is curious, isn't it, that he 
 has taken a fancy to me? You didn't think any- 
 body ever would, did you, father? Neither did I." 
 
 " I wasn't sure anyone would have the sense." 
 
 The clock on the mantelpiece ticked away a couple 
 of minutes before either of them spoke. Then the 
 doctor began again, " Frances, if you like that man, 
 I advise you to marry him." 
 
 "Father!"
 
 172 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " You mustn't consider me in the least. When 
 we planned that you were to be a trained-nurse, 
 we did not know you would so soon have the 
 chance to enter this other profession. Your mother 
 will be delighted with the match, and Ned will be 
 pleased, he has been so strongly opposed to your 
 going into the hospital. I shall be glad, too, if it 
 means that you will be happy." 
 
 Dr. Simonds stopped speaking, and again looked 
 into his daughter's grave eyes. " Do you love this 
 man ? " he asked finally. 
 
 " No, father, not as I could love. But I can't 
 help feeling his charm, and his caring for me so 
 much flatters me. If I were to marry him I am 
 afraid all that is best in me would be stifled. He 
 appeals so strongly to one side of me that I have 
 had moments of wondering if I cannot do as he asks. 
 But when I think of a future with him, I see myself 
 drifting, wearing the pretty clothes that all women 
 like, doing nothing, with less and less of a 
 struggle, and feeling at last as if my life were a 
 failure, for I know I could not satisfy him long." 
 
 " I am not so sure of that ; you have satisfied me 
 for twenty-four years. Frances," said the doctor, 
 taking another turn around the office, " marriage is 
 not a light aijd casual thing. This being bound for 
 life, unless you are bound to the right person, is in- 
 tolerable. An unhappy marriage, for a woman of
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 173 
 
 your temperament would mean a far worse failure 
 than failing in your profession. But are you sure 
 you cannot love him? If you think you have it in 
 your power to do for him all he believes you can 
 do, why, go ahead with my blessing and " 
 
 " Mr. Henderson to see Miss Frances," the maid 
 announced. 
 
 Frances was intercepted by her mother. " He is 
 out on the side piazza," Mrs. Simonds said, with 
 suppressed excitement. " He has been talking to 
 me. He has charming manners, so genial and af- 
 fable. He is so different from your father, who is 
 often indifferent and absorbed, and " 
 
 " My father's manners are quite good enough to 
 satisfy me." 
 
 " There is no need of your flaring up like that ! 
 You are just like him. To think a daughter of mine 
 should be so indifferent to a good offer! If you 
 could only have been a man and Ned a woman, he 
 would have accepted Mr. Henderson at once. Mr. 
 Henderson is such a perfect gentleman and so rich, 
 it is like a fairy tale your having such a chance, and 
 you could go to Europe. And Ned is so ambitious, 
 that having a sister in a hospital seems like a family 
 disgrace." 
 
 " I have come to say good-by," said Mark Hen- 
 derson, as Frances joined him on the piazza. 
 
 " I am sorry it must be good-by."
 
 174 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " If you were really sorry, it would not be good- 
 by. How I wish I could make you see my point of 
 view ! It seems such a frightful waste for you to do 
 this nursing which other women, less sensitively or- 
 ganized, can do better, such a frightful waste, and I 
 need you so. It is the irony of fate that the only 
 woman I ever really cared for should not care for 
 me." 
 
 " It is because I do not care more that you care 
 so much." 
 
 " Try me and see! " he said eagerly. " Give me 
 the chance to prove how much I care ! " 
 
 The languorous fragrance of the grape blossoms 
 was mingling with the moonlight; the outer world 
 seemed full of poetry and romance. Frances felt 
 that in this dreamy atmosphere it would not be hard 
 to let herself drift and take the advice of those who 
 were older and wiser than she. Mark's voice and 
 the expression of his dark eyes thrilled her. Per- 
 haps he felt that momentary hesitation in his favor, 
 for he instantly drew a picture of what her life 
 would be with him, and contrasted it with the 
 drudgery and discouragement that awaited her if 
 she became a nurse. 
 
 Inside, the office lamp was burning, and she could 
 hear the click of the type-writer. The doctor was 
 already hard at work. A great wave of sympathy 
 for her father swept over her. As Mark went on
 
 A Neighborhood Romance 175 
 
 with his rapid sketch every detail of hard work that 
 he pictured made her realize the more strongly the 
 trials of her father's life. She knew she could never 
 have that passionate sense of nearness to her lover; 
 she knew that she could never be satisfied with any- 
 thing short of giving her best. 
 
 Those older people had been born in a different 
 period. They could not judge for her. 
 
 "Must it be good-by?" Mark asked wistfully. 
 
 " It must be good-by," she said.
 
 A SUMMER OUTING
 
 VIII 
 A SUMMER OUTING 
 
 JOHN FORSYTH'S aunts would not hear for 
 a moment of his paying board for himself and 
 his family the summer he spent at their house. 
 " I hope we shall never be so reduced as not to 
 be able to have our relatives visit us," his aunt Le- 
 titia had said with reproachful dignity. So John 
 made them a present of the cow, and the next year 
 he sent them a generous check to be used in taking a 
 summer outing. To Lucy this gift was another of 
 those aggravating freaks of destiny with which her 
 pathway through life had been plentifully strewn. 
 Any other summer she would have been delighted 
 to have the change, but now she wanted to stay at 
 home, because, for the first time in many years, she 
 had made a new friend. 
 
 Josephine Mason, a music-teacher, and second 
 cousin to Dr. Simonds, had come, with her grand 
 piano, to Mrs. Homer Newhall's boarding-house, 
 
 to recruit after an illness. She was young enough 
 
 179
 
 i8o John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 to be the doctor's daughter, but many years older 
 than Frances. Josephine was extremely fond of 
 her older and younger relatives, but was always at 
 swords' points with th doctor's wife. She begged 
 the Simondses not to ask anyone to call on her, for 
 she wanted a quiet time to practice and rest. This 
 was not at all in accordance with Mrs. Simonds's 
 ideas of hospitality, and to the dismay of her hus- 
 band and daughter she insisted upon inaugurating 
 their cousin's arrival by a large tea-party. 
 
 Josephine had many charms, but patience under 
 adverse conditions was not one of them. 
 
 " Cousin Clara, I expressly said I didn't want to 
 meet a soul," she protested. " I hate knowing a 
 lot of people. I want to work without being both- 
 ered." 
 
 " My dear, it is much more wholesome for you to 
 know people, and I want something going on for 
 Frances's sake. She had such a gay time last month 
 when Mr. Henderson was here, a charming fellow 
 with delightful manners, Oh! I forgot that you 
 know him, and he offered himself to Frances, who 
 did not care for him, foolish child, because she had 
 set her heart on going into a hospital. Ned was 
 very indignant, it was such a chance for her to get 
 on in the world. And I liked Mr. Henderson so 
 much ! It was really very trying of her." 
 
 " It would have been more unselfish if she had
 
 A Summer Outing 181 
 
 married to please you and Ned," Josephine re- 
 marked drily. 
 
 " That is it exactly. You have hit the nail on the 
 head, but dear Frances is just like her father. They 
 have their good points, but they are self-centred. 
 As for the tea-party, I have only asked our dear 
 neighbors, the Wyatts. Lucy is a sweet girl, about 
 your age, whom you are sure to like, and Laura 
 Macauley, she is the most fashionable young lady 
 in town, and she had a dancing-party last month, 
 so it will be a great relief to do her up; and, let me 
 see ! Bertha Hall, she is young and pretty ; I have 
 asked her on Ned's account, and I felt I must invite 
 the Lutterworths, our clergyman and his wife, be- 
 cause they asked us to tea when Mr. Henderson was 
 staying with them. They are delightful people. 
 Mrs. Lutterworth has a rather sharp tongue, but she 
 is very amusing, and her husband is somewhat 
 dreamy and has moods, but he is clever, and you are 
 sure to get on with him." 
 
 " By all means put me between the clergyman 
 who has moods and Cousin Andrew, who never 
 talks if he can help it; it will be so restful; we will 
 have a quiet little corner by ourselves, but deliver 
 me from the sweet girl about my age, and the fash- 
 ionable young lady, and the woman with the sharp 
 tongue." 
 
 " Now, Josephine, I think it is unkind of you to
 
 1 82 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 be satirical at the expense of my guests. I expect 
 you to mix all these people up and make things 
 go." 
 
 When the evening came Josephine rose to the oc- 
 casion, as her cousin knew she would. To be bored 
 was the one thing she could not endure, and rather 
 than submit to it, she exerted herself to such good 
 purpose that all the company, with the exception of 
 Laura Macauley, pronounced her charming. Miss 
 Macauley thought she monopolized the conversation 
 tco much. She did not like brilliant women, and it 
 annoyed her to find that Miss Mason, who was at 
 least six years older than she, looked far younger. 
 And indeed dark-eyed Josephine, in a thin black 
 gown, with a single red rose in her bodice, was such 
 a radiant vision that it was no wonder Miss Mac- 
 auley found herself in the shade. Even Ned Si- 
 monds, whom she could usually count on for as 
 much devotion as his blase nature permitted, went 
 over to the standard of her rival. This young man 
 had the supreme happiness of living in Boston 
 the greater part of the year, where he was a rising 
 architect, and this good fortune made him indiffer- 
 ent to the charms of Eppingham society. Always 
 on the alert for intellect and social prestige when 
 they were definitely labeled, he spent his life trying 
 to get into a charmed circle, where he was not par- 
 ticularly wanted, and in unintentionally wounding
 
 A Summer Outing 183 
 
 the feelings of his old friends, who, for some strange 
 reason, were always eager to welcome him. His 
 clothes bore the hall-mark of the latest fashion, and 
 his manners were subdued to aristocratic calm. He 
 was often ashamed of his father's and sister's 
 brusque ways, and of their indifference to dress, 
 while his mother's never-ceasing trickle of conver- 
 sation was a continual irritation to him. To-night, 
 however, under Josephine's influence, he exerted 
 himself to a phenomenal degree. He admired his 
 cousin more than anv woman he knew, although her 
 unconventional ways were often a trial to him. 
 
 The guest at the tea-party whom Josephine liked 
 the best was Miss Letitia Wyatt. Miss Wyatt 
 showed to excellent advantage on any social oc- 
 casion. At home she was often trying, but in 
 another person's house, where she had no sense of 
 responsibility, she gave herself over to frank en- 
 joyment of the moment. She was serenely hand- 
 some and dignified, talking just enough, and draw- 
 ing out other people. Josephine felt that it would 
 not be a disadvantage to have reached the age of six- 
 ty, if one could carry the years with such grace. 
 Miss Deborah was unusually subdued. Josephine 
 liked her, however, and wanted to see more of her ; 
 Bertha Hall was the type of young girl she disliked 
 most, and Josephine characterized " that sweet Lucy 
 Wyatt " as a " washed-out blonde, with no mind of
 
 184 John Korsyth's Aunts 
 
 her own." So much for first impressions. They 
 were modified on the occasion of her call on the 
 Wyatts. The two older sisters were out, and 
 Josephine gave an impatient sigh when she was told 
 Miss Lucy was at home, saying it was just her 
 luck. Josephine had not been in when Lucy called 
 on her, but they had met twice at the Simondses' 
 since the tea-party, and on the last occasion Miss 
 Mason had given the company some music. 
 
 " I am so glad to see you," Lucy said shyly, 
 looking very pale and fragile, as she came forward 
 to meet her guest. " I am sorry my sisters are 
 not at home." 
 
 Josephine, in the affluence of her renewed health, 
 felt a sudden pity for the " washed-out blonde." 
 
 " You look ill," she said. " I am afraid the hot 
 weather is too much for you," and at the end of 
 fifteen minutes she found herself asking Lucy Wyatt 
 to spend an afternoon with her in the apple-orchard 
 behind Mrs. Newhall's house. 
 
 " I want to tell you how much I like your music," 
 Lucy- said, as her guest rose to go. " I hear so 
 little music that I don't always care for it. Some- 
 times it seems as if people played to show how well 
 they can do it, mechanically, but when you were 
 playing I forgot all about you. I only thought of 
 the music, the wonderful soul of it, as it was meant 
 to be."
 
 A Summer Outing 185 
 
 " Do you like music so much? Come and listen 
 to my practising any morning you like. Come at 
 eleven; by that time I am through with scales and 
 exercises. Do you play yourself? " 
 
 " No. I used to a little long ago, but I never 
 played well. Letitia was a much better musician, 
 but we have both given it up." 
 
 " Now, why did I invite that girl to come any 
 morning she liked to hear me practise?" Josephine 
 asked herself as she went down the Wyatts' steps. 
 " She will probably be turning up six days in the 
 week, for I don't believe she has a blessed thing to 
 do." 
 
 Lucy, however, had that rare tact which prevented 
 her taking undue advantage of any invitation. She 
 came once to hear Miss Mason play, and she spent 
 one afternoon with her in the apple-orchard, then 
 she waited in a dignified manner until her new ac- 
 quaintance should accept some hospitality from her. 
 This Miss Mason was not eager to do, so they came 
 to a dead-lock, and for a week they did not meet. 
 The time passed serenely for Josephine, but Lucy 
 was already in that fever of excitement that is the 
 beginning of a great love, for, with all the sup- 
 pressed passion of a thwarted nature, she had given 
 her heart without a shadow of reserve to this beauti- 
 ful, fascinating woman. There was no reason now, 
 as there had been when she was young, she told her-
 
 1 86 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 self, for crushing out the feeling by calling pride 
 to her aid. Nothing but happiness could come from 
 loving another woman. She asked little in return, 
 only to be allowed to sit humbly at her friend's 
 feet, to look into her ardent eyes and to hear her 
 talk about her brilliant future. 
 
 At the end of the week Lucy, tired and pale, met 
 Josephine, strong and rosy, in the post-office. 
 Lucy's heart began to beat so fast that she caught 
 her breath. With a sudden access of shyness she 
 hid herself behind a group of men. When she 
 found that Miss Mason was actually going out of 
 the door without seeing her, she stepped forward 
 timidly. 
 
 " My dear Miss Wyatt, what have you been doing 
 with yourself the last three or four days?" Jo- 
 sephine asked. 
 
 Lucy had a little pang when she found that the 
 long week seemed so short to her friend. 
 
 " I have been meaning to come and look you 
 up," Miss Mason went on, " but my cousins have 
 taken a great deal of my time. When can you come 
 for another afternoon in the hammock ? Til promise 
 not to talk about myself so much. I'll read aloud 
 to you. My cousin Ned says I read aloud well, and 
 if he says so I feel competent to give public read- 
 ings at once. How do you do, Mrs. Lutterworth?
 
 A Summer Outing 187 
 
 Don't go, Miss Wyatt. I'll walk back with you, 
 if you will wait a minute." 
 
 They went down the village street together be- 
 tween the rows of drooping elms, these two women, 
 so nearly of an age, for whom life had been so 
 different. It was a sultry morning, but Lucy forgot 
 the heat, she had felt almost too languid to go to 
 the post-office, but now there was a new light in 
 her eyes and fresh strength in her tired body. The 
 world had been made over for her. 
 
 In the next few weeks the misery caused by 
 Josephine's frequent indifference was tempered for 
 Lucy by the radiant joy that followed her occasional 
 kindness. 
 
 When John's gift came, making a summer out- 
 ing possible, the pain Lucy felt was almost more 
 than she could bear. 
 
 " We will go to the sea-shore," Miss Deborah 
 said. She and Lucy had often planned taking a trip 
 of this kind together. 
 
 " The sea air is always bad for me," said Miss 
 Letitia. " I am apt to feel depressed by the sea, 
 and I don't like the dampness. I am sure you and 
 Lucy will enjoy the mountains, and we had much 
 better decide to go there." 
 
 Long experience had taught the younger sisters 
 that it was better to yield to Letitia in a matter of
 
 1 88 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 this kind, for she was not easy to live with when 
 they went to a place she had not chosen. 
 
 " I don't know what on earth we can do with Mr. 
 Gray if Bridget goes home," said Miss Deborah, 
 " and I don't wonder she objects to staying in the 
 house without one of us." 
 
 " I have provided for Mr. Gray," Miss Letitia 
 announced complacently, " Laura Macauley's ser- 
 vants are to stay in her house while she is in New- 
 port; they can just as well take care of an extra cat, 
 and Mr. Gray will be glad to visit his old home." 
 
 " You are planning- to leave Mr. Gray with the 
 Macauleys' servants! Letitia Wyatt! I knew you 
 were somewhat hard-hearted about cats, but I did 
 not think you would go to such lengths ! I have no 
 respect for Laura Macauley. I should be ashamed 
 to own such a thin cat. Laura said to me the other 
 day when I was feeding my precious Mr. Gray, ' Do 
 you give your cat meat? ' she didn't even call him 
 by his name. ' Ours lives on mice,' as if any re- 
 spectable cat would be contented to live like the 
 Chinese! Mice are all very well for an extra, but 
 you can see for yourself, by looking at the Macau- 
 leys' cat, that mice alone are not satisfying. If that 
 Hannah had the charge of him, Mr. Gray would 
 waste away to a shadow. Rather than have that 
 happen I will give up the trip and stay at home to 
 keep house for him."
 
 A Summer Outing 189 
 
 " Deborah Wyatt ! You are a perfect fool about 
 that cat." 
 
 " I will stay at home," said Lucy. 
 
 " You ? You are always afraid of your own 
 shadow." 
 
 " Bridget would stay with me. I should not 
 mind." 
 
 " My dear, there is such a thing as being too 
 unselfish. You have always longed to go away for 
 the summer." 
 
 " It isn't unselfishness. I should really like the 
 quiet of it, and I should have Miss Mason." 
 
 " Miss Mason is a charming girl, but she couldn't 
 do your health so much good as a trip to the moun- 
 tains," said Miss Letitia. 
 
 The growing intimacy between Miss Mason and 
 Lucy made her vaguely uneasy. She did not be- 
 lieve in these sudden friendships compounded of 
 ardent love on one side and cool acceptance on the 
 other. 
 
 " I am going to the mountains with Letitia and 
 Deborah," Lucy told her friend the next time they 
 met, " and I would much rather stay at home." 
 
 " Then why don't you stay? " asked Josephine. 
 
 Lucy was lying in a hammock under the apple 
 trees loaded with their freight of pale-green embryo 
 apples. She looked up at the blue sky and floating 
 white clouds. A robin flew across the orchard and
 
 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 perched on a branch above her head. She had often 
 longed for a bird's freedom to go where it pleased ; 
 now, she envied the apple tree the power to stay 
 behind. 
 
 " I must go because my sisters think it is best." 
 " But, my dear, you are not a child." 
 " They say the change of air will do me good." 
 " I am better for you than the whole White 
 Mountain range." 
 " I know it." 
 
 " If your sisters are not willing to have you stay 
 in the house alone tell them you will take your part 
 of your nephew's present and spend the summer 
 with me at Mrs. Newhall's." 
 
 This audacious proposal brought the color to 
 Lucy's cheeks. Such happiness would be so revolu- 
 tionary as to be intoxicating. 
 
 " They would never hear of it," she said quietly, 
 the light dying out of her face, " and it would be 
 too selfish. Deborah finds it a little wearing to be 
 with Letitia without me; no one could be more 
 anxious to make us happy than Letitia is, but she 
 does not like everyone, and she has been used to 
 a great deal of devotion, and Deborah, who is the 
 dearest woman in the world, is a little quick-tem- 
 pered; Letitia would find it hard to be with her 
 without me." 
 
 " In short, you are a kind of pillow interposed so
 
 A Summer Outing 191 
 
 their angles won't rub each other. It must be wear- 
 ing to be a pillow year in and year out." 
 
 Josephine was relieved to find that her new friend 
 was not going to accept her impulsive invitation. 
 She was sorry for her, and she was growing fond 
 of her, but what she would do if she were to have 
 her society morning, noon and night she could 
 hardly imagine. 
 
 The difficulty concerning Mr. Gray was solved by 
 means of an indulgent hotel-keeper and a stout bag. 
 Miss Deborah carried the bag that ended in a fluffy 
 gray head. Miss Letitia's dignity was severely tried 
 on the occasion of her being a member of such a 
 conspicuous company. She had never believed in 
 taking Mr. Gray to the mountains; but although 
 she let Deborah and Lucy share the seat with him 
 she did not sit at the other end of the car as the 
 natural woman prompted her to do; but bravely 
 took the seat behind her sisters, ready to share 
 whatever obloquy attended them. They had an 
 uneasy suspicion that the transporting of animals 
 in passenger-cars was forbidden. Miss Deborah 
 had decided what she should do if the conductor 
 objected to Mr. Gray's presence. She intended 
 gravely to introduce her favorite and ask if he were 
 young enough to go for half-fare. She hoped the 
 conductor would have a sense of humor. He 
 proved an unresponsive being who did not notice
 
 IQ2 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Mr. Gray. Although this was convenient Miss Deb- 
 orah was disappointed. She had hoped for a dra- 
 matic scene. 
 
 The chief advantage of the mountain place Miss 
 Letitia had chosen was its view of the presidential 
 range. The mountains were some miles away, 
 Miss Letitia never liked to be too shut in, for that 
 meant dampness which might end in grippe. There 
 was a slight drawback to the place which the sisters 
 discovered on the night of their arrival, and this was 
 that the presidential range had its off days. On the 
 foggy July evening when they descended from the 
 Chatfield Inn coach, the famous mountain range had 
 vanished utterly Chatfield Centre might have been 
 Eppingham, save that its river was muddy instead 
 of clear and that in the foreground some ugly cot- 
 tages and a hideous saw-mill stood out effectively. 
 These unsightly objects were near enough to be 
 always present. Miss Letitia had chosen to be in 
 one of the cottages of the hotel ; this meant ten dol- 
 lars a week instead of twelve, and greater quiet, 
 but when they inspected their quarters they discov- 
 ered that the cottages were at the bottom of the hill 
 and the hotel part way up. The two were con- 
 nected by an inclined plane with cleats, reminding 
 Miss Deborah of a hen-ladder. Their rooms were 
 on the lower floor of the cottage. The season had 
 been a wet one, and it seemed as if they could see
 
 A Summer Outing 193 
 
 and taste the dampness as well as feel it. Miss 
 Deborah longed to remark that the spot her 
 sister had chosen was far dryer than the sea- 
 shore, but she refrained, for Letitia had been 
 so forbearing about the cat. Lucy began to un- 
 pack her trunk and tried to keep the tears from 
 her eyes. Miss Deborah was absorbed by Mr. Gray, 
 who, less reticent than the others, expressed his 
 feelings in a series of frank mews. Miss Letitia, 
 being indirectly responsible for their discomfort, 
 tried to make the best of things, but she was more 
 than reconciled when her sister Deborah told the 
 landlord that they could not stay unless he gave 
 them better rooms. Finally the sisters transferred 
 their belongings to the upper story of the cottage, 
 where open fires kept the dampness at bay. Here 
 they awaited, with what philosophy they could as- 
 sume, the return of the presidential range. The 
 other people in the hotel were second rate. Miss 
 Letitia said in her dignified way that she could never 
 bear second-rate people. Miss Deborah was so run- 
 ning over with kindness and sociability that she 
 brought down this remark upon herself by making 
 advances to a family who did not speak correct Eng- 
 lish. This family with one accord took a great 
 fancy to the spirited middle-aged lady, and invited 
 her to join them on a walk, in a pause between two 
 showers. In due time Miss Deborah introduced her 
 13
 
 IQ4 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 sisters to the Carfields, and Letitia and Lucy were 
 included in the second walk. Miss Letitia was the 
 companion of Mrs. Carfield, who took the initiative 
 in conversation by remarking, " Ain't this a lovely 
 place? " 
 
 " I should think it might be when you can see the 
 view," returned Miss Letitia. 
 
 " The view is elegant," said Mrs. Carfield. 
 
 After this conversation languished, and it was 
 upon her return that Miss Letitia confided her views 
 to her sisters concerning second-rate people. 
 
 They had spent a rainy ten days at Chatfield 
 Centre when one evening a letter in Laura Macau- 
 ley's pointed handwriting was brought to Miss 
 Letitia. 
 
 " My dears," she cried breathlessly, " a great 
 chance has come to me. That dear Laura Ma- 
 cauley has invited me to spend the rest of the 
 summer with her at Newport. She is at one of the 
 most fashionable hotels. The only difficulty is about 
 clothes. It will not cost me anything otherwise, as 
 I am to take the place of her aunt, who has had to 
 go home on account of an attack of appendicitis. 
 She has to have an operation, poor thing ; I am sorry 
 for her, but it is providential for me Laura can- 
 not stay in that great hotel without a chaperone. I 
 feel selfish to go, but you wouldn't enjoy Newport, 
 Deborah, and Lucy is too young for a chaperone."
 
 A Summer Outing .195 
 
 " I thought you did not like sea air," Miss De- 
 borah was unchristian enough to remark. 
 
 " Nothing could be damper than this place. I 
 have not liked to complain, as there did not seem 
 to be anything that could be done about it, but my 
 throat has been irritated for the last day or two. 
 The north shore does not agree with me, but New- 
 port is so far south the climate will be mild. I have 
 always wanted to go there, and Laura knows a de- 
 lightful set of people, so that socially it will be a 
 great advantage to me." 
 
 It ended in Miss Letitia's chaperoning Laura 
 Macauley at Newport. Miss Deborah and Lucy 
 longed to go home, but they had all three engaged 
 their rooms for a month and the landlord did not 
 feel that he could let them off, his house being only 
 half-filled. Miss Letitia was so majestic and over- 
 awing, and she laid so much stress on the dampness 
 at Chatfield Centre, and her delicate health, that the 
 landlord unwillingly allowed her to give up her 
 room and pay nothing, and so the others felt all 
 the more bound to stay. 
 
 " It is a little trying that we, who wanted to go 
 to the sea-shore, should have to stay in this place 
 and Letitia, who chose the mountains, should be the 
 one to go to the sea-shore," Miss Deborah observed 
 to Lucy, as they walked back from the station after 
 having bidden their sister good-by. " However,
 
 196 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 we'll manage to have a great deal of fun now the 
 sun has come out; still it is just a trifle aggravat- 
 ing." 
 
 " Most things in life are aggravating," said Lucy.
 
 MISS DEBORAH'S GARDEN
 
 IX 
 MISS DEBORAH'S GARDEN 
 
 THE evening before the Wyatts' departure for 
 the mountains Mrs. Lutterworth had come 
 in to bid them good-by. 
 
 Miss Deborah was in a despondent mood, a rare 
 thing for her. 
 
 " I wish to goodness John had never sent us the 
 wherewithal for a summer vacation," she observed. 
 " When you have money given you for a certain 
 purpose, if you have a New England conscience you 
 feel bound to spend it in just that way, but I am 
 homesick already when I think of having to 
 leave " 
 
 " Me, and the rest of your friends? " Mrs. Lutter- 
 worth inquired. 
 
 " No, the garden. I can't help thinking of all the 
 caterpillars and cut-worms and beetles that will have 
 a feast. Patrick is so careless." 
 
 " Miss Deborah, I believe you love the garden 
 better than anything in the world but your sisters 
 
 and the cat." 
 
 199
 
 200 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " ' The cat and your sisters/ you should have 
 said," interpolated Miss Letitia. 
 
 " It isn't very flattering," Mrs. Lutterworth went 
 on in her vivacious way. " You can't bear to leave 
 the garden, and you love the cat so well you take 
 him with you, but you can say good-by to me with- 
 out a pang." 
 
 " Sarah Lutterworth, I have such perfect confi- 
 dence in your power to look after yourself and 
 others that I can leave you with an easy mind, 
 whereas Mr. Gray, poor dear creature, would be 
 lost without me, and so I very much fear will the 
 garden." 
 
 Miss Deborah's fears proved true prophets. 
 When she and Lucy came home from the mountains 
 a week earlier than they first planned, a period of 
 drought, joined to Patrick's conscience, that was not 
 of New England origin, had turned their once 
 blooming garden into an insects' paradise. 
 
 Miss Deborah went from one patch of flowers to 
 another, mourning their fate in an ever-increasing 
 crescendo of despair. 
 
 " Lucy, the sweet peas are blighted," she an- 
 nounced. " The dry weather has been too much for 
 them. I wish we could have imported some of our 
 mountain rains. Look at the dahlias, Lucy ! They 
 are drying up! The garden hasn't been watered 
 properly. I knew how it would be. Look at those
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 201 
 
 blister-beetles ! Heavens ! What a looking- garden ! 
 And the corn ! Cut-worms have been at work there ! 
 Patrick O'Halloran, what were you thinking of? " 
 
 " Shure, ma'am, I didn't create the cut-worms," 
 he said sulkily. 
 
 " I am aware of that. I never accused you of 
 having ingenuity enough to create anything. Why 
 under the sun didn't you water things properly?" 
 
 " Shure, ma'am, I was watering and watering, 
 until I nearly got a sun-stroke, and then the hose 
 busted." 
 
 "Well, if.it hadn't been for Clara Simonds and 
 Frances, we shouldn't have anything left," said 
 Miss Deborah. " I am very glad they made you 
 buy a new hose. There is one comfort, their garden 
 is in almost as bad a condition. What am I say- 
 ing? I oughtn't to take comfort in a thing like 
 that. I am glad Letitia is away. The state of the 
 garden would annoy her exceedingly." 
 
 Deborah and Lucy missed their sister, but there 
 was a kind of freedom that came with her absence 
 which was almost intoxicating. They took their tezt 
 in the woods two or three times a week, and on 
 pleasant mornings had their breakfast served on the 
 piazza ; they ate baked-beans and brown bread as 
 often as they liked, and on one never-to-be-for- 
 gotten occasion went so far as to indulge in a 
 roast of pork. They even lost their heads to such
 
 202 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 an extent as to invite old Peter Newhall to spend a 
 day with them. All these things occurred, how- 
 ever, after Miss Deborah's great coup d'etat con- 
 cerning the garden. 
 
 " I am sure the flowers would do better if we could 
 import a few toads to eat up the insects," she said 
 to Lucy, the morning after their return. 
 
 " How are you going to get your toads? " Lucy 
 asked languidly. 
 
 " Lucy Wyatt ! You are the most unenterprising 
 person! You are not lazy; you'd water and weed, 
 and water and weed until your back broke, but it 
 would never occur to you to improve matters. Lis- 
 ten to this extract from the Fanner's Voice. 
 
 " ' Centipedes, caterpillars, blister-beetles and 
 bugs of every description are equally welcomed by 
 the toad. . . . Half a dozen toads in a garden will 
 keep it free from the ordinary garden pests. They 
 are easily tamed, and spend the day in some shaded 
 nook along the fence or under a cabbage-leaf, com- 
 ing sedately forth at night to find their food.' There 
 are toads enough in town. I shall offer to pay 
 Patrick five cents for every toad he brings me." 
 
 Patrick proved to be no more enterprising than 
 Lucy, and Miss Deborah was obliged to take more 
 stringent measures. 
 
 Lucy found her one morning busily writing. " I 
 wish Letitia were here to put this advertisement in
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 203 
 
 proper shape," she said. " Letitia is so clever with 
 her pen. But I can't wait to send this to Newport, 
 and I suppose she would think my scheme was crazy. 
 I have decided to advertise in the County News for 
 toads. There are plenty of toads in Eppingham and 
 plenty of children. The only thing is to devise a 
 scheme to bring them together. How does this 
 read? 
 
 " ' WANTED TOADS ! ! ' That will attract the 
 eye of the most hardened reader. 
 
 " ' Children here is your chance. Five cents re- 
 ward for every toad brought to number 52 Main 
 Street, Eppingham. No frogs need apply/ " 
 
 " I think it would be a little more dignified to 
 leave that out about the children, and say five cents 
 will be given for every toad brought to number 52 
 Main Street, Eppingham, frogs not desired," said 
 Lucy with hesitation. 
 
 " It would take all the spice out of the advertise- 
 ment to alter it ; it can't be very dignified, no matter 
 how you word it," said Miss Deborah, with a little 
 laugh. " I am glad Letitia is not at home. She 
 would find it such a departure. I have always 
 said I wanted my fling, and now I am having 
 it." 
 
 " Aren't you afraid of getting too many toads, if 
 you advertise in a paper? " Lucy asked timidly. 
 
 " Too many ! My dear Lucy, Patrick has been
 
 204 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 hunting the town the last two days and hasn't found 
 one. I am afraid I shan't get enough. I don't ex- 
 pect more than ten or twelve at the outside." 
 
 Lucy went down to the office of the County News 
 with her sister, who requested the editor to put the 
 advertisement in two issues of his semi-weekly 
 paper. This was a little expensive, but Miss Deb- 
 orah was sure it was better to give her experiment 
 a fair trial. The paper was issued on Saturday 
 morning, and the day passed with no results. Early 
 Sunday morning, just as the sisters were finishing 
 their baked beans, the doorbell rang, and Bridget 
 came in with a broad smile on her face. 
 
 " Please, ma'am, a boy and girl want to see you, 
 and they've got something in a basket." 
 
 " Toads ! " ejaculated Miss Deborah, and she rose 
 hastily. 
 
 " We saw an advertisement as said you wanted 
 toads," the little girl explained shyly. 
 
 Miss Deborah opened the cover of the basket. 
 " They are frogs," she cried. " I especially said 
 I did not want frogs. If you can't tell a frog from 
 a toad, you had better go to vacation school. I am 
 not going to give you a blessed cent, not one, and 
 you can take these frogs back to the bog where you 
 got them." 
 
 A pitiful expression came into the faces of the 
 children. They turned away sadly and silently.
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 205 
 
 Their torn clothes and general air of dejection went 
 straight to Miss Deborah's kind heart. 
 
 " Do you like baked beans ? " she inquired in a 
 conciliatory tone. 
 
 " You bet ! " said the boy. 
 
 She ushered them into the dining-room, where 
 Lucy was finishing her coffee. 
 
 " You didn't have much breakfast, I imagine," she 
 hazarded, as they hungrily despatched the baked- 
 beans and brown-bread. 
 
 " No, ma'am. We had to be up very early, we 
 wanted to get ahead of the Baxter boys." 
 
 "Are they looking for toads?" 
 
 " Yes'm. There's four Baxter boys, and we was 
 afraid mebbe you'd have all the toads you wanted 
 before we come along, so we got up at four 
 o'clock." 
 
 When Miss Deborah bade them good-bye she had 
 relented so far as to say, " You can take the frogs 
 back, but I'll give you ten cents each on account of 
 your trouble." 
 
 Miss Deborah and Lucy were just starting for 
 church and were walking sedately down Main 
 Street, in their gently rustling summer silks, holding 
 their pongee parasols to shield them from the torrid 
 rays of the sun, when they met a straggling proces- 
 sion of four unkempt children. Two of them car- 
 ried large tin pails.
 
 206 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " The Baxter boys ! " was Miss Deborah's pro- 
 phetic cry. 
 
 " Can you tell me, please, the house the toad lady 
 lives in? " asked the oldest boy. 
 
 " I am the toad lady," replied Miss Deborah, as- 
 suming as much dignity as was possible. " I live 
 in that white house with the lilac bushes in the front 
 yard. Goodness, Lucy, what shall I do? We are 
 late for church already. I shall be very late if I 
 go back now, but I can't miss a chance like this, or 
 disappoint these children. I hope you have brought 
 me toads and not frogs." 
 
 " They are toads all right," said the oldest boy 
 lifting the cover of his pail, and allowing Miss Deb- 
 orah to look inside, where she saw a merry company 
 of six bright-eyed toads. " There's eight in Jim's 
 box," he announced. 
 
 Miss Deborah made a rapid calculation. " Five 
 times fourteen are seventy cents," she said, " and 
 Bridget hasn't got home from early mass she must 
 have stopped at her brother's; there is nothing for 
 it but to go back. Lucy, go on to church, and if I 
 don't get there, for heaven's sake don't tell Mrs. 
 Lutterworth the reason why. Lie, Lucy, lie like a 
 a Filipino, say I am ill, that I mind the heat ; say 
 anything but the truth. If Sarah Lutterworth 
 should get hold of this I should never hear the last 
 of it."
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 207 
 
 "Shan't I go back too?" suggested Lucy. 
 " Then nobody can ask any questions." 
 
 " My dear, everyone would think we were at 
 death's door if one of us wasn't at church. We 
 should have the whole town coming to inquire." 
 
 Lucy proceeded down the quiet elm-shaded vil- 
 lage street to the accompaniment of church bells. 
 She was a little late, and slipped into her seat half- 
 way up the broad aisle as unobtrusively as she could, 
 but she was conscious of innumerable eyes fixed 
 upon her. She knew everyone was wondering why 
 Deborah was not there, Deborah, who never missed 
 a Sunday at church. 
 
 After the service was over Lucy tried to slip out 
 without speaking to anyone, but Mrs. Lutterworth 
 hastened down the aisle and caught up with her be- 
 fore she reached the church door. 
 
 " I hope Miss Deborah isn't ill? " she asked. 
 
 " No," said Lucy, " she feels the heat a little." 
 
 " I am so sorry ! I never knew Miss Deborah to 
 give up church for weather." 
 
 " She wouldn't have stayed at home merely for 
 that, but the fact is she was detained by callers 
 who came just as we were leaving home," said Lucy, 
 thinking it just as well to say something approxi- 
 mate to the truth. She was sure the person who in- 
 vented lying did not live in a country town, for it 
 is so futile under these circumstances to tell any-
 
 208 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 thing but the blunt, unvarnished truth. Before the 
 day was over all the aristocracy of Eppingham knew 
 who Deborah Wyatt's callers were. Mrs. Simonds, 
 from her window, saw her greet the procession of 
 boys and turn back with them, and had a discussion 
 with her maid as to whether the pails contained 
 toads or berries. They finally came to the conclu- 
 sion that Miss Deborah would not have given up 
 church for anything less unusual than toads. Di- 
 rectly after dinner Mrs. Simonds telephoned the 
 news to Mrs. Lutterworth. 
 
 " I fancy^ Deborah Wyatt will have all the toads 
 she wants for one while, before she gets through," 
 she said. 
 
 And indeed before Monday was over Miss Deb- 
 orah had already regretted that her advertisement 
 was destined to appear in two issues of the 
 paper. 
 
 " This makes eight children who have been here 
 already," she said, as she bought a modest quartette 
 of toads, Monday morning. " Lucy, I shall have to 
 trouble you to see the editor when you are down 
 town, and tell him to stop the advertisement. If 
 he'll give me my money back for the time it isn't put 
 in the paper, so much the better, but I would rather 
 pay for something I don't have than be inundated 
 with toads. If it goes on much longer I shall be 
 ruined."
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 209 
 
 " I don't believe you will have any more toads 
 brought you," said Lucy soothingly. 
 
 " You don't know anything about it," and this 
 proved to be true. 
 
 When Lucy came back Miss Deborah met her 
 with a tragic gesture. " You needn't tell me that I 
 sha'n't have any more toads brought me. This thing 
 is as bad as one of those endless chains. Every child 
 tells ten other children that I will pay five cents a 
 toad. The Baxter boys have been here again with 
 ten more toads, ten, Lucy, do you hear ? And some 
 friends of theirs came with six. I wish John were 
 here to swear for me. I am ready to consign those 
 toads to eternal perdition. Lucy, you needn't laugh 
 in that heartless way. Not another toad will I pay 
 for ; I've told them not to come again, and to tell all 
 their friends that the market is overstocked." 
 
 In spite of this warning, the door bell rang again 
 late in the afternoon, and Bridget came up with her 
 face wreathed in those maddening smiles. 
 
 " Well, who is it? " asked Miss Deborah shortly. 
 
 " They didn't give their names, ma'am, but there's 
 two of 'em, little girls, this time, and they've got a 
 basket." 
 
 " Confound it! " Miss Deborah spoke with delib- 
 eration and a certain relish. " It is a little late in 
 life to begin to swear," she said to Lucy. " I don't 
 know what Letitia would say. I won't take another 
 14
 
 2io John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 toad, not one. I have thirty-two already. I shall 
 land in the poor house." 
 
 " But you promised/' said Lucy. 
 
 " Hang it, Lucy, I can't help it if I did." She de- 
 scended the stairs in a stormy mood. " You can go 
 away," she said to the children, " I have all the toads 
 I want. I did not mean to keep on taking them all 
 summer." 
 
 Tears came into the eyes of the smaller girl. 
 " The paper said the lady would pay five cents for 
 every toad," she remarked in a faltering voice. 
 
 " You can never believe all you see in the paper," 
 said Miss Deborah with dignity. 
 
 The little girl lifted up the cover of the basket in 
 a hesitating way. " There's six, and we worked 
 real hard to get them," she said. 
 
 Miss Deborah was beginning to feel heartily 
 ashamed of herself. " Come into the dining-room 
 and I will make you some lemonade," she told them. 
 " After all, a promise is a promise. I will take the 
 six toads. Thirty-eight," she added under her 
 breath. 
 
 The next morning she took another notice to the 
 editor, stating that no more toads were wanted, but 
 in spite of this fact toads arrived in rapid succession. 
 Before the week was over Miss Deborah found her- 
 self the possessor of sixty of these interesting creat- 
 ures. Lucy always took the children's part, but
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 211 
 
 when the high-water mark of sixty was reached, 
 even Lucy thought it time to call a halt. 
 
 " I've spent three dollars on those confounded 
 toads," Miss Deborah said, " not to mention the 
 twenty cents "for frogs I didn't keep; if it goes on 
 much longer it will be worse than one of the plagues. 
 I am sorry Letitia is so disturbed. She writes that 
 we are making ourselves the laughing-stock of Ep- 
 pingham. I suppose Sarah Lutterworth has sent 
 her one of her lively letters. It is funny ! Of course 
 it is funny ! I can see myself that there is an amus- 
 ing side to it, but I don't see why Letitia should 
 mind when she is neatly out of it. Who would have 
 supposed that toads were so numerous in Epping- 
 ham?" 
 
 After Miss Deborah's sixty toads had been cheer- 
 fully disporting themselves in her garden for a few 
 days, John Forsyth unexpectedly arrived to spend a 
 night with his aunts on the way to join his family at 
 North East Harbor. 
 
 It was delightful to see the dear fellow, but both 
 aunts devoutly hoped he would not hear of the toad 
 episode, for they were beginning to feel sensitive, 
 and their nephew had a sense of humor. 
 
 " It is so good to see you," John said, as they all 
 three sat out on the piazza after tea. " I was in 
 Newport for a day or two last week, and I hunted 
 up Aunt Letitia. She is at one of the swellest hotels,
 
 212 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 and I thought she looked in first-rate condition, but 
 she seemed a little homesick." 
 
 " Letitia homesick?" Miss Deborah asked in- 
 credulously. 
 
 " I fancy being with Miss Macauley isn't all Aunt 
 Letitia's fancy painted it. She said something enig- 
 matical about never knowing people until you 
 live in the house with them. She said Miss Mac- 
 auley was a most interesting woman, but that she 
 liked her own way," he added, with a gleam of 
 amusement in his eyes. " In short, I think Aunt 
 Letitia will be quite reconciled when her time is up. 
 How well your hollyhocks and sweet peas and 
 dahlias are looking, Aunt Deborah." 
 
 " Don't be satirical, John ; the garden never 
 looked so badly. Still, if you could have seen it a 
 fortnight ago when we came down from the moun- 
 tains, you would be amazed at the improvement." 
 
 " Did I see a toad in the garden ? " John asked. 
 " I certainly did. There goes another ! And there 
 is a third one hopping along ! How odd. There is 
 a fourth ! I never saw so many toads before." 
 
 " The garden is full of them," said Miss Deborah. 
 " They eat the insects, so we are glad to have them." 
 
 " I suppose they all happened along of their own 
 accord ? " John inquired nonchalantly. 
 
 " Quite so," said his aunt Deborah. " The gar- 
 den gate was ajar and they walked in."
 
 Miss Deborah's Garden 213 
 
 " That was very convenient." 
 
 John began to laugh, and so did his aunt Deb- 
 orah. 
 
 " I might have known your aunt Letitia would 
 have told you the whole story," she said. 
 
 " You forget that Esther takes the County News. 
 Just how many toads have you in your garden?" 
 he asked confidentially. 
 
 " Almost precisely the same number as my age, 
 John just one or two more. Now, you know it 
 isn't polite to ask a lady her age." 
 
 " If you have only as many as you are years old, 
 Aunt Deborah, it is a very small number," he re- 
 turned gallantly. 
 
 " Lucy, isn't it pleasant to be with someone who 
 doesn't tell the truth?" 
 
 At this point a boy with a pail came up the path- 
 way. 
 
 " John, you go and tackle him," said Miss Deb- 
 orah. " He has toads. Tell him I don't want any." 
 
 " Miss Wyatt doesn't want to see you; you can go 
 home," John said. 
 
 The boy lingered. 
 
 Miss Deborah came down the steps. "I don't 
 want any more toads," she said; " and what is more, 
 I won't take any more toads. I have sixty in my 
 garden. I can't be expected to buy them the rest of 
 my life. Perhaps Mrs. Lutterworth would take
 
 214 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 them of you," she added with cheerful malice. 
 " Tell her Miss Wyatt sent you to her." 
 
 " I ain't got no toads," said the boy sullenly. 
 " What should I be doing with toads ? I've got 
 some blackberries Mr. Newhall sent you from the 
 farm, but if you don't want 'em, I'll take 'em to the 
 other lady." 
 
 " We do want them," said Lucy, hurrying down 
 the steps to get the pail. " It was very kind of Mr. 
 Newhall to send them." 
 
 John meanwhile had been disgracing the family 
 by laughing immoderately. " I don't want any 
 toads ! " he mimicked after the boy had departed. 
 " If you could only have heard yourself, as you 
 made that statement, Aunt Deborah." 
 
 " Well, John, I don't believe you would want any 
 if you were in my circumstances." 
 
 "What do you suppose that boy thought?" he 
 asked her. " What report will he give the old man ? 
 ' Miss Deborah Wyatt has gone crazy,' will be the 
 very mildest way he'll put it. Poor old Peter New- 
 hall! You owe him an explanation." 
 
 And so it was that good came out of evil and that 
 Mr. Newhall had that invitation to dine with the 
 Wyatts, an event that was one of the crowning 
 pleasures of a long life. John alone knew why the 
 invitation was given, and 'he promised never to tell.
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR INDE- 
 PENDENCE
 
 X 
 
 A STRUGGLE FOR INDEPEND- 
 ENCE 
 
 " T UCY, are you going out on this damp day 
 
 J j with your cold ? " Miss Letitia asked, as she 
 
 caught a glimpse of her sister, with her hat 
 and jacket on as she passed through the hall. 
 
 " Yes, I've got over my cold." 
 
 " I heard you coughing only this morning. The 
 wind is strong from the east," she added, looking out 
 of the window at the majestic gilt cock that sur- 
 mounted the Browns' stable. " Where are you go- 
 ing?" 
 
 Lucy hesitated half a minute ; then she said : 
 
 " To see Josephine Mason." 
 
 " You had better give it up if it isn't anything 
 any more important than that." 
 
 " It is almost my last chance : she is going back 
 to Boston the end of the week." 
 
 " Deborah," Miss Letitia called, " don't you 
 
 217
 
 218 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 think Lucy is crazy to go out on this raw day with 
 her cold? " 
 
 Miss Letitia was just recovering from an attack 
 of grippe and observed that she could feel the chill, 
 even in the house with the windows shut. Miss 
 Deborah, on the contrary, had been out of doors all 
 the morning, and took a more cheerful view. 
 
 " I don't believe it will hurt her if she is properly 
 dressed," she said, coming in from the next room. 
 " I think you might as well go, dear, if you will 
 wear my fur cape." 
 
 Lucy was glad to get off so easily. She took the 
 cape and was about to leave the house when Miss 
 Deborah called after her, "Be sure to take an um- 
 brella, it looks as if it might rain, and be back by 
 five. It is very damp after the sun has gone down. 
 Goodness ! I declare, if Mr. Gray isn't after another 
 squirrel ! Lucy, catch him ! Oh, you are so slow ! " 
 and she dashed out of the front door and rescued a 
 gray squirrel who was about to receive the too lov- 
 ing embrace of her cat. 
 
 " Mr. Gray, I am surprised at you," Miss Deb- 
 orah said, as she took him up in her arms. " I don't 
 mind an occasional bird, and chickens are born to be 
 eaten by somebody as surely as the sparks fly up- 
 ward, but I draw the line at squirrels ! Poor old 
 fellow, I know it isn't your fault, it is the way you 
 are made."
 
 A Struggle for Independence 219 
 
 Lucy proceeded down the quiet village street and 
 her sister went back into the house. 
 
 " Mr. Gray, the wind is strong from the east; I 
 think it will suit your constitution better to stay in 
 the rest of the afternoon," Miss Deborah informed 
 him. She then proceeded to get out a gown she was 
 making for John's little Mary. Time never hung 
 'heavy on Miss Deborah's hands ; on the contrary the 
 days were not half long enough. She had that com- 
 bination of unfailing good spirits, joined to energy, 
 which is usually the portion of those who are in per- 
 fect health. It was the opposite with her sister Lucy, 
 who had always been delicate. 
 
 " I declare," said Miss Deborah, " I forgot to ask 
 Lucy if she had her rubbers on. Did you notice, Le- 
 titia?" 
 
 " No. It would be just like her not to wear 
 them." 
 
 " Well, she is half way to Josephine's now, but it 
 would be a satisfaction to me to know," and Miss 
 Deborah went to the hall closet, where she found 
 three pairs of rubbers in a straight row, her own, 
 which were short and wide, Letitia's long narrow 
 pair, and Lucy's number fours. 
 
 " It is just as I thought, she has gone out without 
 them. I wish she could ever learn to take care of 
 herself." 
 
 Lucy, meanwhile, was wishing that her sisters
 
 22O John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 would ever learn that she could take care of her- 
 self. 
 
 It was a dreary afternoon. The November sun 
 was obscured by dull clouds and the trees were bare : 
 their slender twigs stood out in sharp outline against 
 the gray of the sky. To Lucy everything looked 
 gray, both the present and the future. It was the 
 cheerless beginning of a long winter. 
 
 Lucy had hardly become accustomed to being 
 grown-up before she awoke to the fact that she was 
 a middle-aged woman. She had had a long youth, 
 her own position as the youngest of the family, her 
 slight figure, and her golden hair had all served to 
 help her and others to forget that she had passed the 
 boundary where youth gives place to middle-age; 
 but she knew it now; the tell-tale lines in her thin 
 face sharply impressed it on her mind. She was past 
 forty and she had the inexperience of life of a girl. 
 She walked on down the main street of the village, 
 then she turned and went up a narrow side street, 
 pausing irresolutely when she reached a green- 
 house, but finally going in. There were few things 
 that Lucy loved as she loved flowers. The outside 
 of the green-house with its oblong panes of greenish 
 glass gave her the same feeling of keen anticipation 
 that the drop-curtain gives to the theatre-lover. 
 
 " Oh, how delightful it is here," she thought, as 
 she was greeted by the warm, damp smell of earth
 
 A Struggle for Independence 221 
 
 and the fragrance of roses and carnations. Mrs. 
 Tucker, who kept the green-house was an old 
 school-mate of hers. 
 
 " How do you do, Lucy? " she asked. " I'm real 
 glad to see you. Is there anything I can do for 
 you this afternoon ? " 
 
 " I want some roses ; Jacqueminots, if they are not 
 too expensive." 
 
 " Jacks come pretty high this time of year. I've 
 got some good ones though in the other room." 
 
 There were jars standing on the counter full of 
 cut flowers, thrust in with no thought of symmetry. 
 Lucy's fingers ached to rearrange the red and white 
 and pink carnations, and the roses, pink, white, and 
 yellow, that were all occupying the same large jar. 
 
 " There, that's a pretty good show for Novem- 
 ber," said Mrs. Tucker returning. 
 
 " What beauties. How much are they? " 
 
 " Two dollars a dozen." 
 
 " I'll take a dozen." 
 
 " A whole dozen ? Goodness ! You must have 
 money- to burn! Is it an engagement?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, I don't suppose it is any of my business. 
 Sit down. It is a long time since I have seen you." 
 
 " How are you getting on? " 
 
 " First rate, until Ida's marriage last month. 
 That's left me kind o' short-handed. The boys are
 
 222 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 real good. They took hold first rate after their fa- 
 ther's death, and they do all the heavy work same 
 as if they'd been brought up to it, but they haven't 
 got any taste. Ida always attended to the cut flow- 
 ers, and she kept the accounts. I'm looking for 
 some spry, trustworthy body to take her place. You 
 don't know of anyone, do you? " 
 
 " No, I wish I did. It would be delightful work. 
 And so Ida is married? It does not seem as if you 
 could be old enough to have a married daughter! 
 You are a few months younger than I am." 
 
 " What, going so soon ? I hoped you could sit 
 clown a spell and have a real good talk about old 
 times." 
 
 " I can't stop this afternoon, thank you." 
 
 " If you hear of any treasure anywhere between 
 twenty and thirty-five let me know. I think on the 
 whole I'd rather have some one older than twenty. 
 Girls are so heedless. They are always thinking of 
 their beaux. Well, good-by, if you must go. How 
 lucky you are to be able to go out any time of day 
 you like, and not to have anything to do but amuse 
 yourself. I wish I was in your shoes ! " 
 
 " You needn't," said Lucy. " You wouldn't like 
 them if you were. I would give anything in the 
 world if I had something to do." 
 
 As Lucy walked up the gravel path that led to 
 Mrs. Newhall's boarding-house she had a feeling of
 
 A Struggle for Independence 223 
 
 exhilaration. It was as if the sun had suddenly 
 come out in the November sky and turned the sea- 
 son into June. A moment later she was knocking 
 timidly on the door of Josephine's room. 
 
 " Come in," answered a fresh contralto voice that 
 thrilled her through and through. 
 
 As Lucy entered the room her eyes were dazzled 
 by the warmth and cheer. On the hearth there was 
 a blazing wood fire that threw its brightness into all 
 the dim corners, and there was not a corner that was 
 commonplace. The dingy wall-paper was almost 
 covered by spirited sketches, gifts of Josephine's 
 artist friends, and the ugly ingrain carpet was bur- 
 ied under oriental rugs. There were rich hangings 
 and quaint pieces of furniture, and Josephine's pi- 
 ano, but best of all there was Josephine herself in the 
 thin black gown that Lucy loved so well, dark- 
 haired, beautiful, brilliant Josephine, a woman al- 
 most as old as Lucy herself, and yet a woman who 
 might have sat for a picture of eternal, radiant 
 youth. 
 
 " Lucy, how good of you ! Are all those beauti- 
 ful roses for me ? How did you know that Jacque- 
 minots were my favorite flower? Wait until I get 
 a vase and you must arrange them. No one can ar- 
 range flowers like you ; but I must keep this beauty," 
 and she fastened a half-opened bud into her bodice. 
 
 " It seems a pity to break up this pretty nest."
 
 224 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Josephine said presently, giving a hasty glance 
 around the room. " The piano, poor thing, has got 
 to go to-morrow." 
 
 Lucy's spirits were sinking lower and lower. " I 
 don't know what I shall do without you," she said 
 in a dreary voice. 
 
 " Oh, you will find lots of things to do. That is 
 the joy of life. If it isn't one thing it is another." 
 
 " Not for me." 
 
 Poor Lucy was feeling the approaching separation 
 so keenly that she could hardly speak. It was intol- 
 erable to her that Josephine should go her careless 
 way with hardly a thought for her. " The joy of 
 life ! If it is not one thing, it is another ! " Those 
 words so lightly spoken suggested a wealth of 
 friendships and interests that filled her with tortur- 
 ing jealousy. 
 
 *' I believe you are glad to go," she said. 
 
 " I can't help being glad to get back to all my 
 friends and the Symphony rehearsals and my pupils. 
 Yes, I am glad, but I'm sorry to leave you. I should 
 like to take you with me." 
 
 They talked for a few minutes and then Lucy said 
 timidly, " You promised to play to me whatever I 
 wanted to hear this laat time." 
 
 Josephine sat down at the piano and struck a few 
 random chords. " What shall it be first ? " she 
 asked.
 
 A Struggle for Independence 225 
 
 " The Andante from Beethoven's Fifth Sym- 
 phony." 
 
 Lucy in her corner behind the piano-stool could 
 let her tears flow unnoticed. She called for Chopin, 
 Brahms, Wagner, Schubert, and Beethoven. Jose- 
 phine played with fire and feeling. She had never 
 had a more passionately appreciative audience. 
 What did it mean, this wonderful music? Lucy 
 asked herself. A world where it was good to be, in 
 spite of care and sorrow. A world where, notwith- 
 standing apparent discord, there was harmony. 
 Spring, summer, autumn, winter, each was needed; 
 youth, middle age, old age, these were mere inci- 
 dents. Life was glorious, not only for the young 
 with their opportunity all before them, but also for 
 the others, yes, even for those who, like herself, had 
 failed; for failure miorht be but the forerunner of 
 a more spiritual success. She was glad to be alive, 
 glad, in spite of her dull life and delicate health, glad 
 that there were years and years before her. 
 
 Josephine played on, half unconscious of the quiet 
 figure in the corner ; her thoughts were on her own 
 future. 
 
 The charm was suddenly broken by the ringing 
 of a discordant bell. 
 
 " Dear me," said Lucv, " it is six o'clock ! I had 
 no idea it was so late. I must hurry home. My sis- 
 ters expected me at five." 
 15
 
 226 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " My dear, you must stay and take tea with me. 
 I'll send word to your sisters. A boarding-house 
 supper is not the most entrancing thing in the world, 
 but I'll get Mrs. Newhall to send ours up to us, and 
 we'll have a cozy time in front of the fire." 
 
 She overbore all Lucy's objections, which indeed 
 were but feebly stated, for what could be more en- 
 chanting "than taking tea with Josephine ? Their 
 simple meal, consisting of milk-toast, cold mutton, 
 stewed prunes and cake, tasted to Lucy like the nec- 
 tar and ambrosia of the gods. Afterwards the two 
 women drew their chairs up before the fire, and 
 Josephine talked in her rapid, piquant fashion, while 
 the firelight touched her animated face and shone on 
 the red rose in her bodice. 
 
 " You will write to me? " Lucy begged. 
 
 " I don't know. I hate to write letters. My theo- 
 ry is that it is easy to pick up a friendship where you 
 leave it off." 
 
 " But suppose we should not meet for years and 
 years ? " 
 
 " Oh, you must come and stay with me this win- 
 ter. I only pay fifteen dollars a week. If my ship 
 comes in I will ask you outright, but, unfortunately, 
 my ship is the kind that is on the high seas most of 
 the time." 
 
 Lucy did not wonder at this when she looked 
 around the room at the profusion of rare things that
 
 / A Struggle for Independence 227 
 
 it must have cost so much to get together. Jose- 
 phine's reckless manner of spending money was a 
 continual surprise to Lucy. She did not like to own 
 that fifteen dollars a week was a sum that would put 
 a visit to Boston out of the question for her. 
 
 " I wish you had more to do," said Josephine sud- 
 denly. " When one is busy it doesn't matter who 
 comes or goes." 
 
 " There is not much that I can do. Deborah is so 
 strong and self-reliant, she manages the house, and 
 she prefers to take almost the whole charge of the 
 garden. It is foolish to care for things as I do. 
 Flowers seem to me like friends, I love them so. I 
 
 think if Deborah and Letitia only knew " she 
 
 paused. " All my life I have yielded," s'he went on 
 presently. " It was easier to yield than to argue, but 
 I have yielded with rebellion in my heart; now I 
 mean to try to be more patient." 
 
 " For heaven's sake don't be any more patient," 
 Josephine begged. 
 
 " If I had had a husband and children and a home 
 of my own," Lucy continued, " perhaps I should 
 have developed into the woman I was meant to be, 
 
 but as it is It isn't Deborah's fault. She gives 
 
 abundantly, and takes. Whether it is a child, or a 
 kitten, or merely an occupation, she has to appropri- 
 ate it with the intensity of a strong nature. As for
 
 228 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 Letitia, she has always had an extremely high stand- 
 ard, and it is difficult to satisfy her." 
 
 " Poor child ! " said Josephine. She suddenly put 
 out her strong hand and crushed Lucy's thin one 
 within it. Lucy put up her other hand to brush 
 away her tears. 
 
 " I wish you had some vital interest in your life 
 that would take the place my music does with me." 
 
 " I haven't the ghost of a talent." 
 
 " What you need is an occupation outside your 
 own house. You are fond of flowers. Why don't 
 you go into Mrs. Tucker's green-house? She says 
 she wants an assistant." 
 
 The audacity of this proposal fairly took Lucy's 
 breath away. 
 
 " Oh," she gasped, " we don't need money so 
 much as that. I don't think you quite understand 
 the way things are in a country town. Mrs. Tucker 
 is a very nice person we went to the public-school 
 together but she isn't a lady. I never heard of a 
 lady going into a green-house." 
 
 "Didn't you? I have. Not that it makes any dif- 
 ference. Whatever the occupation is, if a lady does 
 it, she is still a lady ; and the more women of refine- 
 ment take up such work the easier it will be for a 
 vast number of others." 
 
 " I am sure my sisters would never consent." 
 
 " They would if you insisted, and if you sue-
 
 A Struggle for Independence 229 
 
 ceeded they would be very proud of you and your 
 rebellion would become a revolution. Your sisters 
 would respect you more yes, they would even love 
 you more if you led your own life : and the money 
 you earned would give them many luxuries, and 
 you could come to Boston and stay with me. I see 
 it all so clearly," she went on rapidly; "you have 
 just the sort of taste that would make a new thing of 
 Mrs. Tucker's green-house, and it would startle peo- 
 ple so to have you do it." She gave a merry laugh. 
 " Fancy the joy of stirring up a staid community 
 like this ! Lucy dear, you must do it if only to give 
 me the pleasure of hearing what people will say." 
 
 It was half-past ten when Josephine and Mrs. 
 Newhall's maid left Lucy at her own door. She was 
 horrified at the lateness of the hour, but the time had 
 slipped away without her realizing it. Her sister 
 Deborah was sitting up for her. 
 
 " Letitia has gone to bed," she remarked, " but 
 she has not been able to get to sleep. We were both 
 worried about you. We expected you by nine 
 o'clock at the latest. We could not imagine what 
 had happened." 
 
 As she reached the top of the stairs a voice called 
 out, " Come in here, Lucy. Why were you so late? " 
 Miss Letitia demanded. 
 
 " I didn't know it was so late. I am very sorry." 
 
 " I was afraid something had happened to you on
 
 230 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 the way home. I have never had an easy moment 
 when you have been out at night since that man was 
 knocked down. Really, Lucy, I am out of patience 
 with you for being so heedless. Didn't it occur to 
 you that Deborah and I might worry? It spoiled 
 our whole evening. We had been looking forward 
 to reading aloud, and we expected you by half-past 
 eight." 
 
 Lucy spent a wakeful night. She was haunted in- 
 sistently by Josephine's music. She felt as if it were 
 calling to her to fear nothing, but, forgetting the 
 past, to dare to face the future. What if Josephine 
 were right, and if salvation lay, not along the old, 
 monotonous track, not in learning to be more pa- 
 tient, less rebellious, but in having the courage to 
 dig up the talents she had hitherto buried, and to go 
 out into the world, strong in the sense of right and 
 freedom ? 
 
 As the result of three wakeful nights she made a 
 visit late one afternoon to the green-house. 
 
 " I'm awful busy," Mrs. Tucker said. " There's a 
 big wedding, a mechanic's daughter, Nellie Slocum, 
 I don't suppose you know her folks, and I've got to 
 make up a bokay of bride roses, and four pink bo- 
 kays for the bridesmaids. I miss Ida at such times. 
 Seems as though my fingers was all thumbs." 
 
 " Let me help you," said Lucy. 
 
 She took off her jacket and gloves and began to
 
 A Struggle for Independence 231 
 
 arrange the bride's bouquet. The roses were half- 
 open and their creamy whiteness was such a joy to 
 her that she touched them lightly with her lips when 
 Mrs. Tucker was not looking. 
 
 " You beautiful, beautiful things," she murmured, 
 and she breathed a little prayer that the young bride 
 might be very happy. " Go to her and tell her that 
 life is a joy when we love," she thought, " and that 
 no matter what happens she must be content to have 
 found the best thing that life can give. And when 
 sorrow comes, tell her when sorrow comes, that she 
 must still remember she has had the .best." 
 
 " Why, Lucy, how fine you've made 'em look 
 same as if you'd been brought up to the trade from 
 your cradle. I've made my bunch kind o' scraggly. 
 Ida always told me I made my bokays either too 
 scraggly or too prim. Would you mind fixing mine 
 a little? The bridegroom is coming for the white 
 ones. The others I've got to send." 
 
 A little later an awkward young fellow came 
 strolling in, looking as if he were very happy, but 
 ashamed to have any one suspect the fact. 
 
 " Are the roses ready ? " he asked, as if roses were 
 foolishness, and he would be thankful when the day 
 was over. 
 
 " Yes. I will get a box for you. Did you ever 
 see more beautiful roses ? " Lucy asked timidly.
 
 232 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " They are quite handsome," he admitted with 
 seeming reluctance. 
 
 " You are going to be very happy," Lucy said 
 shyly, " and there is just one piece of advice I want 
 to give you." She felt as much detached from her 
 usual self as if she were in another world. " Don't 
 be afraid to show you are happy. Women never get 
 tired of being told how much you care for them. It 
 may be foolish, but they never do, and it saves so 
 many heart-aches to say things straight out in plain 
 words." 
 
 The young fellow looked at her in a half-startled 
 way. " Do you know her? " he asked. 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Well, Lucy, I'm greatly obliged to you," said 
 Mrs. Tucker. " I forgot to ask what you come for. 
 Can I give you some more two-dollar ' Jacks ' ? " 
 
 " No, thank you. I came " she hesitated. " I 
 came, to ask if you thought if you thought you 
 would like to try me for a month as your assistant." 
 
 "You? For the land's sake, Lucy Wyatt, how 
 did you ever get your folks to consent? " 
 
 " I haven't told them yet. I wanted to find out 
 first if there was any chance of your taking me. I 
 was afraid you would think me too old." 
 
 " I guess you are not any too old, Lucy Wyatt. 
 You're so's you can get around." 
 
 " And then I am inexperienced."
 
 A Struggle for Independence 233 
 
 " So you think you've got the faults of the old and 
 the young too? " 
 
 "Yes. I find that is what it is to be middle- 
 aged." 
 
 " Well, I look at it just the other way round. 
 You are old enough when you are forty to have got 
 some sense, and you're young enough to enjoy 
 everything that's going. I find it a real pleasant 
 time of life." 
 
 " Will you try me for a month ? " 
 
 " I guess I will ! I'll be thankful to get you." 
 
 " I ought to tell you I am very stupid at arith- 
 metic. It would be hard for me to learn to keep 
 your books." 
 
 " Anything more ? " 
 
 " I am not strong. I shouldn't be able to work all 
 day, so I shouldn't expect full wages. I haven't a 
 bit of self-confidence, and perhaps " 
 
 " That'll do. And the next time you are looking 
 for a job I advise you to bring some reference be- 
 side your own. It sounds pretty risky," she added 
 with a shake of her curly head. " But I'll try you 
 for old acquaintance' sake. I'll expect you Mon- 
 day morning." 
 
 Now that Lucy had resolved to take the fatal step 
 she was seized with a hundred misgivings. Thct 
 evening, while Letitia and Deborah took turns "in 
 reading aloud, she was outwardly present, but in-
 
 234 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 wardly absent, traveling many roads that all re- 
 turned in a circle to the point whence they started, 
 namely, the stern admonition of her conscience, that 
 it was less underhanded to tell her sisters her deter- 
 mination at once. 
 
 " It is time to go to bed," said Miss Deborah, as 
 the clock struck half-past nine. 
 
 She closed her book and started to put out the 
 lights. 
 
 " Deborah, don't be in such a hurry," remon- 
 strated Miss Letitia. " I want to finish this leaf. I 
 dislike to leave a piece of embroidery unfinished 
 over Sunday When it is so nearly done." 
 
 " And I have some news to tell you," said Lucy 
 in an unsteady voice. 
 
 " Some news? How exciting! Is it an engage- 
 ment ? " 
 
 " Oh, no. Not an engagement of marriage, at 
 least. It is only an engagement of another sort I 
 
 have made. I have promised " she hesitated, 
 
 then ran the words out in a tumultuous rush, " I 
 have promised to help Maud Tucker in her green- 
 house." 
 
 " Lucy Wyatt ! Are you crazy ? " 
 
 " Is it crazy to want to lead my own life? I am 
 tired of doing nothing. I have never done any work 
 in the world that counted. I love flowers, and I 
 am sure that I can be a help to her. I am not
 
 A Struggle for Independence " 235 
 
 needed at home, and I should like a little more 
 money." 
 
 For a moment there was an uncomfortable silence. 
 Then Miss Letitia said with cold aloofness, " Is 
 there anything we ever grudged you that you 
 wanted? We may not have so much money as 
 our neighbors, but we have always given you an 
 even share of what we had." 
 
 " You have always been very generous." 
 
 " No woman in our family has ever been reduced 
 to earning money," said Miss Letitia. "We have 
 been ladies for generations." 
 
 " I am tired of being a lady. I want to be a wo- 
 man." 
 
 " Lucy," said her sister Deborah, " you are alto- 
 gether too delicate to do such hard work. The hot, 
 damp air would be trying; you would take cold be- 
 fore a week was over." 
 
 " I have promised to try it for a month." 
 
 " You completely take my breath away," Miss 
 Deborah continued. " It is Josephine's doing. You 
 were very contented before she came." 
 
 " I have never been contented," said Lucy in a 
 low voice. " I have been deceitful and kept my feel- 
 ings to myself. It was easier than to give you pain, 
 but all my life I have wanted things I did not have. 
 
 When I was young, you " she hesitated. It 
 
 seemed cruel to go on.
 
 236 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Whenever we gave you advice, it was for your 
 good, as events proved," said Miss Letitia. 
 
 " I know you thought it for my good. Well, we 
 won't talk about that ; my youth is over, but I have 
 a long life ahead of me, it is my life, no one can live 
 it for me. I want to try my own experiments. I 
 want to do a little honest work in the world." 
 
 " Lucy, it is absurd for you to imagine that you 
 can begin to work at your age, when you have al- 
 ways led such a free life," said Miss Letitia. " It 
 isn't as if you were twenty. You will find that you 
 will dislike the confinement. And then just fancy 
 how people will talk ! Imagine what Mrs. Lutter- 
 worth will say." 
 
 " Let them talk. They may talk and I will be 
 happy." 
 
 " I think you are unreasonable to want more than 
 you have, dear," said Miss Deborah. " I am per- 
 fectly happy in my own home. What with the house 
 and garden and Mr. Gray and Cowslip, and sewing 
 and reading and calling on my neighbors, I don't 
 think there is a happier person in Eppingham than 
 I am." 
 
 " Because it is your work, Deborah, your work 
 and your house, your garden, your cow and your 
 cat. I want my work, my own work. I shall be 
 happier and stronger if I have it."
 
 A Struggle for Independence 237 
 
 " My house ! My garden ! My cow ! My cat ! 
 ejaculated Miss Deborah. 
 
 " You do have a way of taking possession of 
 everything, Deborah," assented Miss Letitia, as she 
 handed her needle over to Lucy to thread. 
 
 " My cat ! " the words rankled in Miss Deborah's 
 mind. " Why, Lucy, you brought him home your- 
 self." 
 
 Lucy got up to leave the room. " We won't talk 
 any more about it to-night," she said wearily. 
 
 Miss Deborah detained her, however, by a fresh 
 argument, and they threshed the matter out for half 
 an hour. 
 
 " For heaven's sake let's go to bed," said Miss 
 Letitia at last, as she took the final stitch in her em- 
 broidery, " I hate a discussion at this time of 
 night. It keeps me awake for hours. You are a wo- 
 man grown, Lucy, and if you insist upon doing an 
 insane thing we have no right to prevent it." 
 
 " Of course I can give up, as I have done all my 
 life, but if I do, knowing as I do now what is right, 
 I shall never have a happy moment. I shall despise 
 myelf, and the Lord will despise me. It will be 
 worse than selling my birthright." 
 
 Letitia left the room. Her tall figure was drawn 
 up to its full height, and her face expressed cold 
 disdain and an absolute lack of sympathy. Deb- 
 orah, on the contrary, had been thrilled through and
 
 238 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 through by Lucy's words. She had an admiration 
 for pluck, joined to a natural curiosity to see what 
 would happen if her sister carried out her plans. 
 
 " Lucy," she said, kissing her good-night more 
 tenderly than usual, " try your experiment for a 
 week, and if it doesn't succeed I think I can promise 
 to have the self-restraint not to say, ' I told you 
 so.' " 
 
 " It is just as I knew it would be," Miss Letitia 
 said, when Lucy came home from the green-house at 
 the end of three days with a bad cold. Miss Deb- 
 orah said nothing. She shut her lips together very 
 hard that she might not remind Letitia who it was 
 who had predicted that Lucy would take cold. 
 
 Lucy was so wretched for two days that her sis- 
 ters persuaded her to stay at home. Finally, on the 
 third morning they called in Dr. Simonds. 
 
 " My sister took her cold in Mrs. Tucker's green- 
 house," Miss Letitia informed him. " The air is so 
 hot and damp that it is a great exposure." 
 
 Dr. Simonds was a man of few words. He took 
 Lucy's temperature and found that it was normal ; 
 then he looked at her hard through his gold-bowed 
 spectacles. 
 
 " Do you like to be in the green-house? " he asked 
 her. 
 
 " I haven't enjoyed anything so much since I was 
 a girl."
 
 A Struggle for Independence 239 
 
 "Is this the first cold you've had for a long 
 time? " 
 
 " Oh, no. I 'had one only a few weeks ago." 
 
 " Then it may not necessarily be the green-house 
 that is responsible. Couldn't you wear something 
 thin, a summer shirt-waist, for instance, while you 
 sre there, and then put on extra wraps when you 
 come out into the cold ? " 
 
 Lucy could not resist giving her sisters a tri- 
 umphant glance. 
 
 " To tell the truth," said Miss Deborah, with that 
 uncompromising honesty that endeared her to her 
 friends, " Lucy came down in a shirt-waist the first 
 morning she went to the green-house, and I made 
 her go upstairs and change it for something thicker." 
 
 " Of course you did," said Miss Letitia, " and you 
 were entirely right. The doctor has never realized 
 how delicate Lucy is. When she is at home we can 
 watch over her and make her take some sort of care 
 of herself, but even with all our pains she is far 
 from strong. I am sure, if she stays in the green- 
 house she will break down from overwork." 
 
 Lucy glanced at the doctor with pleading eyes. 
 
 Something seemed to annoy him; he got up, and 
 walked hastily to the window. Mr. Gray, in pursuit 
 of a vanishing squirrel, caught his eye. 
 
 " Your cat has grown into a very fine animal, 
 Miss Deborah," he said.
 
 240 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " He is Lucy's cat." 
 
 " Is he? You always seem to have the charge of 
 him. By the way, just what is there for Miss Lucy 
 to do at home?" 
 
 " There is always plenty of sewing," Miss Letitia 
 replied a-fter a little pause. 
 
 " Sewing ! " the doctor gave a contemptuous 
 grunt. " Excellent work, that, for an invalid ! " 
 
 " There are all the little feminine occupations," 
 said Miss Letitia. " It would take too long to 
 specify them." 
 
 " Ladies," said the doctor vehemently, " I am as 
 strong as the average man, but, upon my word ! if 
 I had to stay cooped up in the house and coddle 
 myself whenever I caught cold, and sew for hours 
 with nothing to occupy my mind except myself, 
 I should either go raving crazy, or become a hypo- 
 chondriac. Miss Lucy, I congratulate you that you 
 have escaped. Congenial work is the salvation both 
 of men and women. Go back to the green-house to- 
 morrow morning. If you break down I will prom- 
 ise to attend you for nothing." 
 
 To have Dr. Simonds on her side was a triumph 
 for Lucy Wyatt. When he went home to dinner 
 that morning he said to his wife, " Clara, wouldn't 
 you like a few plants? roses, carnations, lilies-of- 
 rhe- valley and that sort of thing? "
 
 A Struggle for Independence 241 
 
 " Lilies-of-the-valley in November? They would 
 cost a small fortune. Andrew, have you gone 
 crazy? " 
 
 " Frances will get them for me if you object," he 
 said, tossing a five-dollar bill across the table to 
 his daughter. 
 
 " But, Andrew, we can't spare the money. If you 
 are so flush as all that I should like some new dotted 
 muslin curtains in the spare-room, and you need a 
 new hearth-rug in your office. You remember you 
 let the sparks burn a hole in the one you have now ; 
 and we need two new hearth-brushes." 
 
 " I know what he wants, mother. He wants to 
 help along Miss Lucy Wyatt." 
 
 " Charity begins at home," Mrs. Simonds quoted 
 plaintively. " You never did care how the house 
 looked, Andrew, but you are fond of Frances, and 
 she needs a new hat. The one she is wearing is 
 very shabby." 
 
 " Mother, I should be glad to wear my old hat 
 three more winters if in that way I could make Miss 
 Lucy's experiment a success. It isn't only Miss 
 Lucy, it is the principle father and I care about. If 
 she succeeds it will make it easier for all the rest 
 of us." 
 
 " I think it is a dangerous thing," said Mrs. 
 Simonds, conservatively, " if all of us women were 
 
 16
 
 242 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 to rush into outside work, where would you men 
 be?" 
 
 The doctor was about to speak, but checked him- 
 self. When one saw him in his own house .it was 
 easy to see why he had acquired the habit of silence. 
 
 It was not only Dr. Simonds who took Lucy's 
 side, but also the minister and his wife. Mrs. 
 Lutterworth, whose caustic tongue was dreaded 
 throughout the parish, surprised the entire sewing- 
 circle by standing up for Lucy Wyatt, and in the 
 end, after a lively discussion, all the ladies followed 
 her lead like a flock of submissive sheep. 
 
 Men, women and children went to Mrs. Tucker's 
 green-house, partly from curiosity, partly from real 
 kindness of feeling, and for a few weeks potted 
 plants and cut-flowers were ordered so lavishly 
 that Mrs. Tucker's slender stock was well-nigh de- 
 pleted. 
 
 " I had no idea you was such a belle, Lucy," she 
 informed her assistant. 
 
 " There are a great many good, kind people in 
 the world," said Lucy, , " but it won't last long. 
 Very soon they will get used to my being here, and 
 forget about me, and everything will be as usual." 
 
 " And then you'll get kind o' discouraged, and 
 want to leave me." 
 
 "Leave you?" said Lucy. Her eyes were elo- 
 quent. " Leave the place where I am so happy !
 
 A Struggle for Independence 243 
 
 Why, I love every flower in the green-house. If 
 business falls off so you can't afford to pay me, I 
 should be glad to stay on and pay you for keeping 
 me." 
 
 When Lucy gave her sister Deborah the first 
 money she had ever earned it was a proud moment. 
 
 Deborah took the crisp bills and smoothed them 
 out gently. A mist came over her eyes. " Lucy, 
 dear, you mustn't do it," she insisted. " You must 
 keep all the money for your visit to Josephine. To 
 think how I hectored and tormented you and tried 
 to keep you from going into the green-house! And 
 this is my reward ! No, Lucy Wyatt, I can't take 
 it!" 
 
 " Dear," said Lucy gently, " where should I be 
 without you? I love you better than anyone in 
 the world." 
 
 Mr. Gray, jealous because the two were absorbed 
 in each other, made a spring and settled himself in 
 Miss Deborah's lap. Lucy no longer minded his be- 
 ing more fond of her sister than he was of her. Her 
 life was so full now that her old grievances seemed 
 childish, and she could well afford to take the second 
 place. 
 
 " Your cat is looking unusually handsome to- 
 day," said Miss Deborah generously. 
 
 " I was just thinking how handsome your cat 
 looked." Lucy returned with a smile.
 
 244 John Forsyth s Aunts 
 
 Lucy handed the crisp bills back to her sister. 
 " You must keep the money," she said. " It is our 
 money. Everything I have belongs just as much to 
 you and Letitia."
 
 A TASTE OF FREEDOM
 
 XI 
 
 A TASTE OF FREEDOM 
 
 SOME of Lucy Wyatt's friends predicted that 
 she would tire of her occupation in the green- 
 house as soon as the novelty was gone, while 
 others believed that she would break down under 
 the unaccustomed strain; it was so seldom that a 
 woman succeeded who started on a new enterprise 
 when she was past forty ; but Lucy's case proved an 
 exception. She flung herself into her work with the 
 same enthusiasm with which she had given her 
 heart to Josephine, and now that she had this double 
 interest, life, which had so long been colorless and 
 negative, grew absorbing. There was the constant 
 expectation of receiving one of Josephine's racy 
 letters, that were like a serial story, and only second 
 in importance were the daily events in the green- 
 house. There were always buds to watch unfold, 
 tiny green buds that at first seemed so frail as hardly 
 to justify hope, but that developed into fragrant 
 roses, soft-hued orchids, or fifty other delightful 
 
 247
 
 248 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 things. The roses were Lucy's favorites ; she 
 watched every stage of their progress, and when 
 the petals fell she gathered them up tenderly and 
 put them in a rose- jar, grateful for the fact that 
 there were new buds to succeed the old blossoms. 
 It was the law of the world, she told herself ; men, 
 like the flowers, were born, grew old, and. died, and 
 others came after them, but if they lived a true life 
 there was always the beauty to remember. Now 
 that she was happier herself, it was easier to believe 
 in the justness of the laws. 
 
 On the rare intervals when Lucy received a let- 
 ter from Josephine Letitia would ask if she said any- 
 thing about the Boston visit. 
 
 " Not yet," Lucy had to own. 
 
 Finally Letitia said, " Lucy, it is the middle of 
 February, and you may as well give up the idea 
 of your visit. Miss Mason forgets her friends the 
 moment they are out of sight. I knew it from the 
 beginning. The very first time I saw Josephine 
 Mason I thought her charming, but volatile." 
 
 " Letitia," said Lucy, with the slowly gathered 
 courage of the last few months, " Josephine is my 
 friend and I love her. If she never asks me to go 
 to Boston I shall love her just as much." 
 
 Letitia could not but admire Lucy's loyalty, and 
 to tell the whole truth she found her more interest- 
 ing when she asserted herself.
 
 A Taste of Freedom 249 
 
 The first week in March the invitation came that 
 put Lucy Wyatt in a fever of excitement, which all 
 her friends shared in a lesser degree. Mrs. Tucker's 
 daughter offered to come home and help her mother 
 the fortnight Lucy was away, so that the chief lion 
 in her path was promptly slain. 
 
 " I am afraid I can't meet you," Josephine wrote, 
 " as I have a music lesson to give at the hour you 
 arrive, but you won't have any trouble, for you can 
 take a subway car at the Union Station to Park 
 Street, and walk over the hill to Chestnut Street, or 
 if you prefer you can take a carriage." 
 
 " I must say Josephine is most inconsiderate," 
 Miss Letitia said, when she read this note which 
 Lucy relinquished very unwillingly. " My dear, 
 you haven't been in Boston for years. You will be 
 sure to lose your way if you take the electric cars. 
 I positively forbid it." 
 
 " It is much safer to go with the public than to 
 take a carriage," protested Miss Deborah. " Heav- 
 en only knows where the driver would land the 
 child." 
 
 " I am a woman grown," Lucy reminded them 
 gently. " I have a map of Boston, and also the 
 power of speech." 
 
 " I want you to promise me to be very careful to 
 wear enough wraps," said Miss Letitia. " An east 
 wind may come up at any moment in Boston. You
 
 250 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 must not leave off your furs, no matter how mild 
 it is." 
 
 " Do go to see Bunker Hill," urged Miss Deborah. 
 
 The Lutterworths and Mrs. Simonds came to call 
 the evening before Lucy's departure. Mrs. Si- 
 monds said she must be sure to call on Frances at 
 the hospital, and she gave Lucy several errands to 
 do. " Frances is so busy I don't like to ask her," 
 she stated, " and then she isn't a born shopper, as 
 you are." 
 
 Mr. Lutterworth told Lucy she must see the 
 Fogg Museum in Cambridge and the Natural His- 
 tory rooms in Boston, while Mrs. Lutterworth said 
 she must make Miss Mason take her to Keith's and 
 the Castle Square Theatre. Indeed, if Lucy had 
 done half her kind friends planned, the fortnight 
 would have stretched itself into two months. 
 
 At last the moment for leaving home came, the 
 flurry of packing was over, a feat that was rendered 
 difficult owing to the contradictory advice Lucy re- 
 ceived from her sisters, and she was actually in the 
 Boston train. 
 
 " Be sure you don't lose your ticket," was Miss 
 Deborah's parting injunction, while Miss Letitia 
 added, " Be careful in the subway, or you will get 
 knocked down." 
 
 Lucy had not dared to own to her sisters how 
 little courage she had, but the dread of her solitary
 
 A Taste of Freedom 251 
 
 transit through Boston kept her happy anticipations 
 of her visit in abeyance. When she reached the 
 Union Station the noise was deafening, and the mad 
 succession of electric cars was so bewildering- that 
 she chose the more peaceful alternative of taking a 
 carriage. 
 
 Upon arriving at Josephine's boarding-house 
 Lucy explained to the maid who she was, and said 
 she would like to go to her room to wait until Miss 
 Mason came. 
 
 The girl led the way indifferently up three long 
 flights of stairs. She had possessed herself of 
 Lucy's handbag, and the driver followed with her 
 trunk. The room was very small.' There was no 
 water in the bowl and pitcher, and there were no 
 towels on the rack, while a heap of rubbish on the 
 floor indicated that the last occupant had but re- 
 cently departed. 
 
 " Can I have some water? " Lucy asked timidly. 
 
 " Yes'm. I didn't know you were coming so 
 early. Miss Mason didn't say when she expected 
 you, and it is the chambermaid's afternoon out." 
 
 " When does Miss Mason usually get home? " 
 
 " I don't know. There's so many coming and 
 going I can't keep track of them all. She'll be sure 
 to be in by dinner-time at half-past six." 
 
 It was only half-past four now, and Lucy's heart 
 sank. The maid's indifference to the exits and
 
 252 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 entrances of human beings struck a chill to the 
 heart of the village-bred woman. In Eppingham, 
 if she merely left home for an hour there were 
 half a dozen people to whom the fact was of import- 
 ance. Lucy had never felt so lonely in her whole 
 life. 
 
 The maid cleared away the rubbish, and she pres- 
 ently returned with the pitcher filled with cold water. 
 Lucy had not dared to ask for hot water. As the 
 servant opened the door a gaunt maltese cat darted 
 in ahead of her. This forlorn creature brought a 
 ray of comfort with him. 
 
 " Pussy, dear pussy," Lucy said. " Come and see 
 me. I have a cat at home. What is his name? " 
 
 " He hasn't got any that I know of. He's a tramp 
 cat that is always coming and begging for food. 
 Scat ! We don't want you round here." 
 
 With the departure of the maid and the cat, Lucy 
 felt as if her last tie to the world had gone. She 
 unpacked her trunk with tears in her eyes. She 
 would have given worlds to be back in dear Epping- 
 ham, sitting in the cozy parlor with Letitia and Deb- 
 orah, receiving afternoon callers with Mr. Gray 
 curled up in her lap. Dear Mr. Gray, what a pleas- 
 ure it would be to see him ! In this lonely city the 
 very cats were unfriended. She was in a mood to 
 bear cheerfully even the irritating advice of her 
 sisters. There were some things in life sweeter than
 
 A Taste of Freedom 253 
 
 independence. If Josephine had come to Epping- 
 ham, how eagerly she would have welcomed her! 
 She would have put a bunch of red roses on her 
 dressing-table at Mrs. Newhall's, and she would 
 have met her at the train no matter what she had to 
 give up. Not that she found fault with Josephine; 
 she could not put off her music scholar ; city customs 
 were different she merely blamed this great un- 
 friendly Boston, with its lonely crowds of hurrying 
 people. 
 
 " Well, Lucy," said Josephine, coming hastily in 
 at the partly open door, " I am sorry to be so late. 
 You poor dear, I told Jenny to show you right to 
 my room, but of course it was her afternoon out, 
 and equally, of course, she forgot to mention the 
 fact that you were coming, to Kate. How well you 
 are looking ! My dear, you look ten years younger. 
 I like you in dark green. I thought I should get 
 here soon after you did, but I was detained by meet- 
 ing an old friend. I am sorry you have to be in this 
 tiny room, but it is the only one that is vacant." 
 
 Josephine had seated herself on the edge of the 
 bed ; there was but one chair, and Lucy was gazing 
 with hungry eyes at her friend's animated face and 
 brilliant color. She made up her mind that a fluffy 
 fur boa and a black velvet hat with ostrich plumes 
 made the most effective frame she had yet seen for 
 the lovely face.
 
 254 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " I have planned all sorts of delightful things to 
 do with you evenings," Josephine stated. " I only 
 wish these old lessons didn't keep me so busy day- 
 times. Somebody has given me two tickets for the 
 Symphony concert to-night." 
 
 Lucy tried not to show how tired she felt. The 
 concert would be a great pleasure, but she wished it 
 had come an evening or two later. As soon as she 
 went down into Josephine's room, however, she 
 forgot her fatigue and her homesickness vanished. 
 Lucy had again opened the volume containing her 
 serial story and was once more in the enchanted at- 
 mosphere that had delighted her at Mrs. Newhall's. 
 The same spirited sketches looked down at her from 
 the walls, while the oriental rugs and hangings gave 
 a touch of the Arabian Nights to the room ; and best 
 of all, there was Josephine's grand piano, silent now, 
 but ready to wake into life at the touch of Jose- 
 phine's hands. Lucy sat down on the window-seat, 
 and was lost in happy thoughts as she looked across 
 the house-tops to the Charles River glimmering in 
 the distance. As twilight came, the lights sprang 
 out one by one, until myriads of shining points suc- 
 ceeded the sunset glow. Lucy was absorbed by the 
 thought of the rush and tumult of this large city. 
 In Eppingham every light' stood for some well- 
 known household; here sjie was a stranger in a 
 strange land; a stranger, but no longer unhappy,
 
 A Taste of Freedom 255 
 
 because wrapped around with the light-hearted 
 gaiety of Josephine's personality. 
 
 The first meal in the boarding-house was a trying 
 ordeal to the shy, country-bred woman. 
 
 " Are there many people here? " Lucy asked ner- 
 vously, as she paused in a sudden panic before the 
 door of the brilliantly lighted dining-room. 
 
 " No, only about eight or ten. Tiresome people 
 for the most part. I don't trouble myself about 
 them. I talk a little at meal times, because it is so 
 stupid to be silent, but otherwise I leave them se- 
 verely alone. I will introduce you, because it is less 
 awkward, but you needn't feel obliged to talk." 
 
 Lucy could not take her social obligations in this 
 easy fashion. She had been brought up to consider 
 conversation at meals obligatory, and greatly to 
 Josephine's surprise, she found her friend entering 
 into an animated talk with Miss Johnson, a gray- 
 haired, shrinking person who sat next her at table. 
 Opposite them were Mr. and Mrs. Cumberland. 
 Mr. Cumberland looked bored and a trifle cynical. 
 Mrs. Cumberland was vivacious enough for both of 
 them. She was dressed in a low-necked black gown 
 and wore a string of pearls. 
 
 " Is it whist to-night, Mrs. Cumberland ? " Miss 
 Johnson asked, with the hesitating manner of the 
 woman to whom conversation is a duty rather than 
 a pleasure.
 
 256 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " Yes, compass whist." 
 
 Lucy glanced at Mrs. Cumberland's husband and 
 wondered whether it was the prospective whist- 
 party that gave him that bored expression. If so, 
 she could sympathize with him. 
 
 "Do you like whist, Mr. Cumberland?" she 
 asked. 
 
 " I ? Miss Wyatt, that is a superfluous question. 
 It would not do any good if I did. I could never 
 penetrate the charmed circle." 
 
 Lucy looked the surprise she felt. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " I have the misfortune 
 tc be handicapped at the outset. I belong to the 
 wrong sex." 
 
 " But I thought the one advantage of whist was 
 that men and women could play it together." 
 
 " Miss Wyatt, you have evidently not been long 
 in this part of the world," he replied. " The great 
 advantage of living in Boston is that there is nothing 
 women cannot do better without men than with 
 them." 
 
 " Miss Wyatt will think you are in earnest, Fred," 
 Mrs. Cumberland said reproachfully. 
 
 " Miss Wyatt looks as if she were an intelligent 
 woman. I have only to ask her to notice the engage- 
 ments you make while she is here, and let her judge 
 if I am not right. It is Symphony concert evening.
 
 A Taste of Freedom 257 
 
 You could have gone there with me, if you had 
 chosen." 
 
 " I have only missed four or five this winter, and 
 you haven't been with me more than twice. Mr. 
 Cumberland is not musical," she confided to them. 
 " It bores him so to go to a classical concert that I 
 always spare him, if possible. He could have gone 
 to-night, but he wouldn't." 
 
 " Far be it from me to find fault with Mr. Cum- 
 berland's indifference to music, or Mrs. Cumber- 
 land's love of whist," said Josephine, " for it is to 
 them that my friend and I owe the pleasure of go- 
 ing to the Symphony concert this evening." 
 
 " My friend and I ! " How Lucy's heart warmed 
 at the words. 
 
 " That poor Mr. Cumberland," said Lucy, as she 
 and Josephine were starting for the concert. " I 
 can't get his face out of my mind. And what is 
 the matter with that blase young fellow on my side 
 of the table?" 
 
 " I am sure I don't know. I have never taken the 
 slightest interest in any of them." 
 
 " Does Mrs. Cumberland go out much without 
 her husband ? " 
 
 " Of course she does. They care for such differ- 
 ent things." 
 
 " I don't see what she married him for, then." 
 
 " You will wonder a great deal more what he 
 17
 
 258 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 married her for, before you get through with them, 
 but they seem to be happy enough as married .people 
 go. It is only their way of talking." 
 
 " But they can't really enjoy each other if they 
 prefer to spend all their time apart," Lucy persisted. 
 
 " My dear, just think what a bore it must be to 
 be tied down to one person continually. If I had a 
 husband I am sure I should be thankful to have my 
 evenings out." 
 
 " You know you don't mean that, Josephine. If 
 I had a husband I should spend every single even- 
 ing with him." 
 
 " I haven't the slightest doubt of that. You 
 would be a household drudge if you had a husband. 
 I am very glad you haven't one. I like you a great 
 deal better as you are. If you had a husband you 
 never would have left him to make me a visit." 
 
 " I like that little Miss Johnson," Lucy said, 
 " although she looks as if she had been starved 
 in her heart, poor thing. She has asked me to go 
 with her to the Art Museum and Public Library 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 " Really ? She is a mouse-like person generally. 
 I never heard her say so much as she did to-night. 
 You quite waked her up. If you find these people 
 interesting, I don't know what you will say when 
 you see my friends." 
 
 They reached Symphony Hall a few minutes
 
 A Taste of Freedom 259 
 
 later, and Lucy's eyes were dazzled by the glare of 
 lights and the flash of brilliant colors. The cool 
 white corridors and the pale cream-colored and 
 gray walls with the line of red around the edge of 
 the balconies, made a harmonious background for 
 the gaily-dressed crowds. Lucy felt as if she were 
 in a huge green-house full of living flowers. Red 
 and different shades of lilac predominated, and she 
 thought of scarlet geraniums and orchids. When 
 the music began she was spell-bound. It was a con- 
 cert to remember all her life. To hear Schubert's 
 Symphony in C played by that great orchestra was 
 an experience that was better than anything she 
 had hoped for in this world. 
 
 " How could Mrs. Cumberland give up such a 
 concert for whist?" she murmured in a pause be- 
 tween two movements. 
 
 " My dear, she has heard this Symphony until 
 she is tired of it." 
 
 Mr. Cumberland was in the parlor waiting for 
 his wife when they reached home. He came out 
 into the entry to speak to them. " Well, what did 
 you think of Symphony Hall?" he asked Lucy. 
 
 " I liked it extremelv, and the music was more 
 wonderful than anything I ever heard." 
 
 " Isn't she a satisfactory friend to have? " Jose- 
 phine asked, and again Lucy had that warm feel- 
 ing at the heart.
 
 260 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 " You really seem to enjoy things," Mr. Cumber- 
 land said. 
 
 " How could any one help it ? I was only sorry 
 you and Mrs. Cumberland lost the pleasure." 
 
 " You needn't worry about us. So you liked 
 Symphony Hall, and the organ did not make you 
 think of an overgrown radiator?" 
 
 " I thought it very beautiful." 
 
 In the days to come Lucy had the intoxicating 
 feeling that comes from being a social success. 
 Why every one was kind to her she failed to see. 
 She was not very young, she was no longer pretty, 
 and neither was she clever, but the inexplicably de- 
 lightful fact remained that everybody seemed to like 
 her. 
 
 " Miss Wyatt is as refreshing as a breath of 
 country air," Mr. Cumberland observed to Jose- 
 phine, while his wife added that she was a sweet, 
 sympathetic woman, and even the blase young man 
 spoke of her as a " nice sort." Josephine rq^eated 
 every compliment to her visitor, sure that she had 
 never suffered from over-praise. Miss Johnson, 
 Lucy's gentle-faced neighbor at table, became her 
 warm friend before the fortnight was over. The 
 others confined their interest in her to telling her 
 what she ought to see, while Miss Johnson helped 
 her carry out their suggestions, and took excursions 
 with her when Josephine was busy with her music
 
 A Taste of Freedom 261 
 
 scholars. Lucy even went so far as to go up Bunker 
 Hill monument, feeling as if this were a duty she 
 owed to Deborah, while she visited the Fogg Mu- 
 seum in Cambridge out of consideration for Mr. 
 Lutterworth. She hoped he would not be too much 
 disappointed that she did not go to the Natural His- 
 tory rooms, but she had to leave out something. 
 
 " I never saw your equal, Lucy Wyatt," Josephine 
 remarked one evening. " You will wear yourself 
 out trying to please everybody. You've seen Bunker 
 Hill, Faneuil Hall, the Art Museum, the Public 
 Library, the Old South, Christ Church, all the bury- 
 ing grounds in Boston, to say nothing of the whole 
 of Cambridge, and Frances Simonds's hospital. It 
 is lucky for you that I am frivolous, so you have 
 some let-up evenings." 
 
 It was those evenings that were the delight of 
 Lucy's visit. She had them to look forward to dur- 
 ing the long day when Josephine was busy, for, in 
 spite of Lucy's indefatigable sight-seeing, she had 
 periods of being homesick when her friend was 
 , occupied with her pupils. 
 
 The crowning joy of all came at the close of 
 Lucy's stay in Boston, when she heard Tannhauser 
 with Ternina as Elizabeth. She had been to the 
 opera only a few times in her life, and the prospect 
 was exciting. Frances Simonds was to meet them 
 at the Boston Theatre. She was enjoying her work,
 
 262 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 but Lucy had the feeling that some of her illusions 
 concerning life were gone. Frances was looking 
 unusually well. Josephine had taken her cousin's 
 clothes in hand, and the pale-lilac waist that she 
 was wearing this evening was extremely be- 
 coming. 
 
 Lucy was intensely interested from the moment 
 the curtain rose on the hill of Venus to the end of 
 the opera. In spite of the sirens and nymphs, it 
 was so wonderfully true to life. It was the old 
 struggle between good and evil, the struggle as old 
 as human souls themselves, and as true now as in 
 the earliest ages. The pity of it struck her afresh. 
 Alas ! that no one ever learned from the experience 
 of another, that every human soul must make a 
 solitary journey through the world and fight with 
 the evil powers alone ! She thought of Alec, and of 
 his struggle, and that soft, seductive music helped 
 her to understand as she had never understood be- 
 fore the insidiousness of the temptations to yield to 
 the lower nature. 
 
 They were in the family circle, and after the first 
 act was over they went out into the corridor to get 
 the air. 
 
 "Isn't the music wonderful?" Lucy asked 
 Frances. 
 
 " I liked parts of it, but those nymphs looked too 
 tailor-made."
 
 A Taste of Freedom 263 
 
 As the opera went on, however, even Frances was 
 thrilled and stirred, while Lucy was completely car- 
 ried out of herself by Ternina's voice. Ah, if she 
 herself had only been as strong as this wonderful 
 Elizabeth, the sequel of Alec's history might 
 have been different. But she had failed him 
 instead of trying to help him. He had de- 
 served friendship and loyalty at her hands, and 
 she had let her own miserable pride stand in 
 the way. How small such human distinctions 
 looked in the face of death, or when one heard the 
 interpretation of life that this marvelous opera gave! 
 It was a comfort to Lucy when she thought of Alec 
 to feel that the sin was on her side as well as his. 
 Was Frances thinking of Mark Henderson? Did 
 she, too, feel herself an Elizabeth with the fate 
 of a human soul in her hands ? Frances was watch- 
 ing the stage intently, but was she one who could 
 ever learn through the imagination? 
 
 At the end of the second act, almost as if in re- 
 sponse to Lucy's thoughts, Josephine said, " Why, 
 there is Mr. Henderson, in the first gallery at the 
 left, with the Barrets." 
 
 If Frances felt any excitement she did not show 
 it. Lucy was the one who colored and seemed 
 embarrassed. She looked in his direction, half apol- 
 ogetically, and saw him talking to a young- and 
 pretty girl. An elderly woman, who looked as if
 
 264 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 she might have been pretty once in an ineffective 
 way, sat with them. 
 
 Lucy did not know how the opera was going to 
 end, and in the last act she fairly caught her breath. 
 Was the evil in Tannhauser going to triumph over 
 the good after all ? She felt she could not bear that. 
 No, the good would prevail at last. The Pilgrims' 
 chorus thrilled her through and through and seemed 
 an epitome of the glorious possibilities in life. It 
 was only when Tannhauser was saved after Eliza- 
 beth's death that she remembered to turn to her com- 
 panions. 
 
 " There is no need to ask if you enjoyed the 
 opera, Lucy," Josephine said. 
 
 But enjoyment was hardly the right term for the 
 fever of excitement in which Lucy had spent the 
 evening. It was as if -there had been crowded into 
 that brief space a complete revelation of life and 
 human nature, its baseness and sin, together with 
 its wonderful power of rising to a nobler level. 
 
 As they were going out of the lower hall they 
 met Mark Henderson. He and his friends were 
 lingering to look at a photograph of Melba. Lucy 
 would have passed him by, but Josephine stopped 
 to speak to the group. 
 
 " Wasn't the opera great? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 ', He turned and saw the other two. When his
 
 A Taste of Freedom 265 
 
 eyes rested on Frances his sensitive face changed. 
 Lucy glanced furtively from one girl to the other. 
 Miss Barrett was exceedingly pretty, but Lucy 
 thought she looked as characterless as a rose 
 without fragrance. Frances, on the other hand, 
 suggested to her a purple thistle. She was plain, 
 but there was something infinitely satisfactory 
 in her clear-cut, irregular features, and the flash of 
 her gray eyes. Life would not be wholly smooth 
 with her for a companion, but it would never be 
 dull ; there would be constant surprises full of 
 piquant interest. 
 
 "Did you enjoy the opera, Miss Barrett?" 
 Josephine inquired, at the same moment that Mr. 
 Henderson was asking Frances a similar question. 
 
 " I thought It lovely, splendid," Miss Barrett re- 
 plied with enthusiasm. 
 
 " I liked it," said Frances, impartially, " but Wag- 
 ner and I are not entirely congenial. This is the 
 third opera of his I have heard. They make me 
 think of life in a country town. There is so much 
 that is monotonous, and then once in a while there 
 are glorious half hours." 
 
 " That idea of life does not apply only to a 
 country town," Mark said. 
 
 He looked tired and listless. Lucy was sure he 
 was living in an unsatisfactory tract of country at 
 present. Had she been Frances, she would, on the
 
 266 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 spot, have given up all thoughts of finishing her 
 hospital course, and would have said some little 
 thing to make him feel that the glorious half hours 
 might come again, but Frances was always herself, 
 and instead of striking the personal note, she said 
 it was a pity prima donnas were invariably so stout, 
 and then turned to join Lucy. Josephine had 
 walked on ahead with Mrs. Barrett. 
 
 " I don't see what you mean by calling that 
 opera monotonous," Lucy said to Frances. " To 
 me it was intense from beginning to end." 
 
 " You are more musical than I am, and you de- 
 mand less. Just the unfolding of buds in a green- 
 house is an event to you. You must remember I 
 am fresh from a great hospital where I have 
 
 learned ", she paused, " that opera, the most 
 
 thrilling parts of it, seem tame compared with the 
 horrors of real life." 
 
 "Do you ever wish you hadn't gone there?" 
 Lucy asked impulsively. 
 
 " Never. I am sometimes cowardly enough to 
 wish I hadn't been made so I wanted to go, but if 
 there is so much more sin and sorrow in life than I 
 supposed, then there is all the more need of what I 
 can do to help." 
 
 There was a long pause. Then Lucy said, " Mr. 
 Henderson did not look happy to-night. Oh, 
 Frances, dear, how I wish you could find it in your
 
 A Taste of Freedom 267 
 
 heart to be good to him. If there were more hap- 
 piness in the world, there would be less evil." 
 
 " That was a pretty girl who was with him," 
 Frances returned, with an assumed indifference, 
 " she looked good as gold." 
 
 " Yes, but as insipid as sugar and water/' 
 
 Lucy's visit was at an end, and every one in the 
 boarding-house was sorry to have her go. Poor 
 Miss Johnson was in tears as she bade her good-by. 
 
 " My dear," she said " you have brought great 
 brightness into the life of a dull old woman. When 
 I think of all we have seen together, and of your 
 sunny young face and power of enjoyment I am very 
 thankful to have known you. Would it be too much 
 to ask you to spare a few minutes from your full 
 life now and then to write to me ? " 
 
 And Lucy, remembering how carelessly Jose- 
 phine had once answered a similar question, replied 
 with warmth, " Dear Miss Johnson, of course I will 
 write to you. It is such a pleasure to have made a 
 new friend." 
 
 It seemed hard to Lucy that she should love Jose- 
 phine with a wealth of passionate affection, only to 
 receive a" small portion of regard in return, and that 
 she could not give as much love to Miss Johnson 
 as that dear friend was bestowing on her, but the 
 fact that she too, on her side> could inspire a deep
 
 268 John Forsyth's Aunts 
 
 love was so novel as to be strangely comforting. 
 She was determined never by word or deed to fail 
 in doing her duty by her new friend. Yes, life was 
 good, far better than she had supposed it could be 
 in the old days ; it was stimulating and exciting, this 
 life in the great city, but she would not like it as 
 a constancy. At the end of the fortnight she was 
 glad to go back to peaceful Eppingham, and have 
 time to think it all over. 
 
 The Cumberlands seemed very sorry to say good- 
 by to Lucy. They interested her deeply and she 
 felt profound sympathy for them. She had never 
 seen two people who seemed less congenial. They 
 had been in love with each other once, she was sure 
 of that from something Mrs. Cumberland said to her 
 one day, but they had been profoundly disillusioned. 
 Was there no one who found real happiness ? Lucy 
 thought of John and Esther, and their contentment 
 with life and each other warmed her to the heart's 
 core. Yes, there were a few happy people who kept 
 alive one's faith in the best things, and if, on every 
 side, there were men and women who had failed, 
 there was always the wider vision of life, that she 
 had found, opening out for them if they would but 
 see it, for it was good to live in spite of sorrow, 
 pain, and disappointment, since there were love and 
 friendship in the world. She no longer felt a sense 
 of bitterness because she had missed the best in life;
 
 A Taste of Freedom 269 
 
 it was so much to have escaped the worst. 
 
 It was a cold, crisp night when Lucy reached 
 home, but a flaming sunset gave a look of warmth 
 and cheer to the snowy roads, for although it was 
 early spring in Boston, it was still winter in Epping- 
 ham. The very air breathed of purity. It had 
 been good to go away, but it was better still to come 
 back, and it was best of all to be greeted by Deb- 
 orah's tempestuous embrace at the station, and 
 Letitia's quiet kiss when she reached home. They 
 were so glad to see her ! Even Mr. Gray shared in 
 the general demonstration, and rubbed himself lov- 
 ingly against her feet. 
 
 There was a fire on the hearth in Lucy's bedroom, 
 and there was warm water in her pitcher, and a 
 great bunch of pink carnations on her dressing-table. 
 It was very sweet to Lucy to be wrapped about with 
 all these signs of love, and she turned and kissed 
 Deborah anew as she said, " Oh, it is so good to 
 get home." 
 
 " You were exceeding! v faithful about writing," 
 said Letitia. " I am glad you saw so much." 
 
 " We have felt so old and dull without you, dear," 
 said Deborah. " I don't believe you half realize the 
 freshness your young life brings into the house. I 
 am glad you went, though, because it is good for 
 young people to have their fling." 
 
 THE END.
 
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