. a. D. <. SSE&itnep. 
 
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 BONNYBOROUGH. 
 
 BOYS AT CHEQUASSET. Illustrated. 
 
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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK
 
 SQUARE PEGS 
 
 BY 
 
 MRS. A. D. T. WHITNEY 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 re$, <ambtibjje 
 
 1899
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGB 
 
 I. CHARLOCK COTTAGE 1 
 
 II. THE OTHER AUNT 10 
 
 III. BOILING UP, AND SIMMERING DOWN . . 16 
 
 IV. THE HENSLEES 22 
 
 V. A MORNING WOOD- WALK 29 
 
 VI. HENSLEE PLACE 34 
 
 VII. PREDICAMENT 39 
 
 VIII. I LIKE HER 44 
 
 IX. FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET . . 48 
 
 X. LETTERS 62 
 
 XI. SCHOOL EXPERIENCE 72 
 
 XII. SOCIAL ICEBERGS 85 
 
 XIII. LATITUDES : AND BURNT ALMONDS . . 93 
 
 XIV. DR. ULICK NORTH 104 
 
 XV. CENSORSHIP 108 
 
 XVI. THE REMNANT 115 
 
 XVII. "SNIPS" 124 
 
 XVIII. THE THEATRE 132 
 
 XIX. By THE RIVER 143 
 
 XX. WHICH END is THE REMNANT ? . . . 150 
 
 XXI. THE GLADMOTHER 161 
 
 XXII. ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS . . . 170 
 
 XXIII. ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES .... 178 
 
 XXIV. SQUARE AND ROUND 192 
 
 XXV. A PANORAMA OF THE PAST . . . . 203 
 
 XXVI. PICKED UP IN THE WOODS .... 215 
 XXVII. THE ROARING GORGE . . . * . .223 
 
 XXVIII. HIGHLAND NORA 229 
 
 XXIX. ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE . . . 233 
 
 XXX. THE MAY QUEEN 242 
 
 XXXI. THINGS : AND SPIRIT 253 
 
 XXXII. ASTIGMATISM : AND WINDMILLS . . . 265 
 
 1694444
 
 iv CONTENTS 
 
 XXXIII. BE ZIQUE 275 
 
 XXXIV. THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS .... 283 
 XXXV. SEEING THROUGH 292 
 
 XXXVI. WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET . 296 
 
 XXXVII. DEPARTURES 313 
 
 XXXVIII. IN THE AWMRY ROOM 321 
 
 XXXIX. AUNT ESTHER S SOLO 336 
 
 XL. EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT . . . 340 
 
 XLI. MORNING SUNSHINE 348 
 
 XLII. MISSING 354 
 
 XLIII. FATHER AND SON 358 
 
 XLIV. THE RULE OF THREE 364 
 
 XLV. " WHAT DID HE COME HERE FOR ? " . . 374 
 
 XL VI. "DR. NORTH is A FINE MAN" ... 380 
 
 XL VII. HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT .... 387 
 
 XLVIII. "WE UNDERSTAND" 398 
 
 XLIX. THE SAUNSEE MILLS 406 
 
 L. "I WOULD NEVER HAVE LET YOU Go ! " . 414 
 
 LI. "CAN YOU PUT UP WITH IT?" . . . 420 
 
 LII. " HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF "... 424 
 
 LIII. QUEEN ESTHER 427 
 
 LIV. THE LAUNCHING OF THE GOLDENROD . . 431 
 
 LV. THE GLADMOTHER is ORACULAR . . . 438 
 
 LVI. SHRIFT 443 
 
 LVII. LADY OF HENSLEIGH 453 
 
 LVIII. THE SAILING OF THE GOLDENROD . . 462 
 
 LIX. INHERITANCE 466 
 
 LX. COMFORT AND COUNSEL ..... 471 
 
 LXI. EXECUTORSHIP 476 
 
 LXII. APPRAISALS 483 
 
 LXIII. R. THISTLESTOKE 490 
 
 LXIV. SPECTACLES ....... 494 
 
 LXV. UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER .... 498 
 
 LXVI. As A SAPPHIRE STONE . . . 500
 
 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 CHARLOCK COTTAGE. 
 
 A COMMOX kitchen garden and small orchard planta 
 tion ran down from before the back stoop to the rough 
 fence that shut off a bit of meadow. 
 
 Beyond the meadow strip, hidden under low, weedy 
 banks, where alders grew and blackbirds nested in the 
 tangled coverts, scampered a bright little brook, making 
 its own music all the time, accompanied in the day by 
 the whistle and chirr of the restless winged creatures, 
 and all night long by the booming and shrilling of the 
 frogs. 
 
 Over the brook began a stretch of quiet woodland. 
 Out of its stillness came, in the long evenings, the cry of 
 the whippoorwill : sometimes an owl hooted. Besides 
 the blackbirds who especially homed and haunted, other 
 singing birds made the mornings sweet, and the tender 
 iteration of his two notes betrayed the near, shy presence 
 of the quail. 
 
 The house standing at the head of this garden and 
 meadow slope was a plain, low structure, two rooms 
 deep. It fronted on the village street, with only a fif 
 teen-foot dooryard, shaded, however, by two majestic 
 elms, one on either side the gateway, whose inner branches 
 swept the roof. 
 
 The four lower rooms were a parlor, a kitchen behind
 
 2 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 it, a milliner s shop at the other front, and a bedroom 
 behind that. Upstairs were small cottage chambers. 
 One of these, whose little dormer window looked right 
 into the heart of the elm, and the secrecy of a hangbird s 
 nest, was Estabel Charlock s, when she came to stay 
 here with her " other aunt." 
 
 Estabel Charlock was being brought up in sections, 
 as it were, by two aunts, in very irregular alternations. 
 The two respectively denominated each other as above 
 quoted. The aunt in present administration was the 
 milliner, plain Miss Esther Charlock. 
 
 John Charlock had loved his sister, and desired to 
 give his child her name, which had been his mother s 
 also ; but his wife, Isabel, had made compromise with 
 this fanciful combination. John could not refuse her 
 claim, put only second ; and the natural shortening 
 brought it about, in his own use, to his own intent. 
 
 None of them thought, or perhaps knew, the remote 
 signification of the two, or what their joining might 
 suggest as prophecy. The girl s life, as measured in 
 the present, might give no hint of its fulfillment ; but 
 the " new name " was waiting for her to grow to ; the 
 ultimate was in bud under the initial ; we are told it 
 shall be so, in final revelation, with every spirit. 
 
 Estabel was not a beautiful child ; she did not shine, 
 in any way, as a morning star; she did not come up 
 above her horizon in time for that. Hester the Beauti 
 ful is not always the planet of dawn. She climbs all 
 day, sometimes, behind the sun. 
 
 Estabel had, as every human creature has, the begin 
 nings of beauty ; but, as happens with so many of us, 
 very few persons detected them. It needed a sort of 
 second sight, in which people are lovely who fail of the 
 immediate positive sign. 
 
 Her hair was pale and straight. Neither she nor 
 any one else knew anything better to do with it than to 
 draw it sharply back from her thin face, and braid it in
 
 CHARLOCK COTTAGE. 3 
 
 a tight, tidy, uncompromising tail, tied often with a 
 crumpled ribbon. The tail was slenderer than if the 
 hair had been of coarser fibre or more generously han 
 dled, and its faint color was easily put out by any 
 deep contrast of its fastening. Dark brown, which she 
 mostly wore, extinguished it. Pale blue made it look 
 nice, but was too delicate ; she could not have fresh 
 ribbons every day; as I have said, the dark ones, even, 
 were worn until they were well crumpled. But it must 
 be confessed that up to her present age it had been true 
 of her that she crumpled herself pretty generally to 
 match. 
 
 She had clear, penetrating eyes ; straight-glancing, 
 demanding. Their color was not determined ; it was 
 ordinarily, perhaps, a dusky gray, but with a curious 
 central deepening at times, like the heart of a chryso- 
 beryl; and if you noted, a luminous flash also, like the 
 irradiation of that rare, peculiar gem. The lashes and 
 brows were dark. This was "queer, with light hair, 
 and no particular colored eyes, " common observers used 
 to say. It was really nature s caveat, her bespeakal 
 of right to perfect her own plan at leisure. 
 
 Estabel never thought much about her clothes. They 
 were things to get on, before she could be free of the 
 day ; before she could begin to make any delight of it. 
 They were something in the way when a proper appear 
 ance was necessary before she could enjoy. She envied 
 the hens, who fluttered down from their roosts in all 
 their feathers. 
 
 She did not live very much, as yet, in any present 
 objective of herself. Her impulses urged forward into 
 all that was beyond. And yet they returned, in a 
 strange, half-comprehended reflex, upon that entity of 
 her which was building, as the bees comb builds, from 
 the far-fetched wax and honey of the fields. 
 
 She wanted it all, somehow, in herself, her very 
 own life. She wanted to be.
 
 4 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 With the impatience of an intense, imaginative na 
 ture, she wanted to be, at once. She anticipated her 
 self, and in all sorts of successive, incongruous ways. 
 Perhaps the elements of any one of the projections of 
 life in which her fancy indulged, and in which she posed 
 herself, enacting scenes and situations, trying herself 
 on, may have heen in her, waiting circumstance and 
 choice. At present she was everything by turns and 
 nothing long or completely; everything in dream, and 
 scarcely anything in actuality. How else could it be 
 with a child of fifteen, in whom the restless, eager, un 
 formed woman-soul was struggling? 
 
 Her mother s sister, Vera Cumsden, was a richer 
 woman than Esther Charlock. While she had kept on, 
 an independent spinster, in the Cumsden family home 
 at Oxton which had fallen into her final sole possession, 
 or when in her absolute freedom she had chosen to spend 
 an occasional winter in the great, distant city, she had 
 now and then claimed Estabel as her companion for a 
 convenient season. This was partly conscience, feeling 
 that she must somehow do her share, and partly an aug 
 mented ease and pleasure to herself, especially in her 
 transient metropolitan sojourns, when to be quite alone, 
 and without obvious tie or object, was in a way awk 
 ward, as well as sometimes dreary. It is often easier 
 to carry one s self well with some little thing in one s 
 hand. Aunt Vera took Estabel in hand, and was com 
 fortable. 
 
 She would fit her out with a pretty wardrobe for the 
 time being, take personal pains with her, and transform 
 her briefly into quite a different bit of little-girlhood, 
 in quite a new episode of experience. It seemed to 
 Estabel as unreal as any of the other dreams, when she 
 was remanded to the solitudes and small samenesses of 
 Stillwick. 
 
 The pretty wardrobe would be all worn out, except 
 perhaps a gown or two, which Miss Esther would keep
 
 CHARLOCK COTTAGE. 5 
 
 back thriftily from common use until they grew old- 
 fashioned altogether, and had to be altered with some 
 scrimp and loss, to do duty where fresh, plain garments 
 would have been far more in graceful keeping, which is 
 all that can illustrate style or taste, or that they have 
 any business to mean. A frequent sense of this unsuit- 
 ableness handicapped the ease and confidence upon 
 which good manner depends ; Estabel lapsed into an 
 awkwardness of chagrined self -consciousness. Miss Es 
 ther thought "her visit to Topthorpe " or to Oxton, as 
 the case might be, "had not improved her much." The 
 verdict went to intensify the conditions upon which it 
 based itself. 
 
 That Estabel was capable of being so wrought upon, 
 proved that she was not yet in the reality of herself; 
 that she had not come to her full and fair opportunity. 
 Nobody thought of that ; people thought, here in Still- 
 wick, that she had great opportunities ; they expected 
 her to come back among them with a very visible city 
 polish. They might have resented that ; as it was, 
 they said of her, with a certain satisfaction, that she 
 had no manners, after all. 
 
 Dropping back from her brief holiday and half-train 
 ing into the inevitable Stillwick homeliness and the not- 
 caring that was habitual to her, that finer instinct which 
 might have concerned itself with expression in externals 
 was driven back with all the more force upon idealities. 
 She brought into her secret world a small, imperfect 
 store of things gathered up elsewhere, and lived them 
 out in her strange, solitary fashion. 
 
 Under the elms, on the broad, flat doorstone, she 
 would sit in the flickering moonlight and shadow, tell 
 ing some story of imagined experience or some confi 
 dence of intimate thought to a companion as mythical 
 as the tale, yet as real as the thought. Myth was 
 verity to her, as it was to the mythmakers of old. It 
 is the life of the young soul and of the young world.
 
 6 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 If the things of shadow are not fact at the moment, 
 they are shadows flung from fact, that has been, back 
 of literal memory, or may be, beyond actual foresight. 
 Estabel made up what she pleased ; there was every 
 thing in all the world to draw from, if everything were 
 not here in Stillwick and Aunt Esther s little domain. 
 Common things covered the invisible ; pine woods were 
 the hiding of Elf -Land ; fairy tales told the secret that 
 the earth was full of. 
 
 She made up friends ; she made up society ; she made 
 up a lover, even, like those in books she read; and the 
 lover was just as simple-natural as all the rest. She 
 only wanted him that she might be cared for first ; 
 might be by somebody altogether delighted in and un 
 derstood. The people of her self -created sphere were 
 kind and good to her ; they were grand and sweet, noble 
 and wise ; she built a little kingdom of heaven for her 
 self, which indeed, some tell us, we are all to do, out 
 of our best and happiest. 
 
 Once in a great while she pretended to herself a mo 
 ther ; but that came too near a half-comprehended truth. 
 She did not dare go far with that. It was the fictitious 
 replacement of a real loss. To tell things to her mo 
 ther made the tears come, she hardly knew why. The 
 child s life had begun with a missing. It had seemed 
 to be just off time with everything, from the forgotten 
 start. 
 
 Her day leisures were filled with the acting out of 
 fantasies. In pleasant weather the kitchen-garden and 
 bit of orchard became her haunt, her theatre, her world. 
 They represented all things to her, suiting all her 
 moods. 
 
 Among the lilies and the hollyhocks, the asparagus 
 and corn, in the shady fruit-tree alleys and betAveen 
 the rows of gooseberry and currant bushes, she walked 
 as in a great, gay, happy concourse. She trailed ima 
 ginary velvets or sheeny silks, as a splendid, fashionable
 
 CHARLOCK COTTAGE. 7 
 
 woman ; there was music of the birds and of the brook 
 in the air; light shimmered softly among the shadows 
 or flamed broadly over open space. The company as 
 sembled with her was individualized, historied, and 
 grouped in her imagination. She was in the midst, ad 
 mired, attended. She had her share of life. Only her 
 share ; everybody was charming, and she was charming, 
 too. She was let in, and made welcome. It was a 
 harmless, sublimated world ; she had the good of every 
 thing that might be, and the bad, the mean, was all 
 distilled away. 
 
 Sometimes she quietly found a place where she might 
 sit hidden ; then she fancied herself in some vast, still, 
 rapt congregation, listening to great words ; stirred by 
 the fine enthusiasms of an uplifted multitude. Often 
 she read such words, that she had found, aloud; oftener 
 she sat still, and thought them. 
 
 Many a Sunday hour she passed so, in a dream of 
 worship and reverence that never came to her in the 
 glaring little village church, with its cross-lighting win 
 dows and white paint, its rustle of Sunday gowns and 
 fans, its motley level of best bonnets, its halting, irregu 
 lar murmur of a newly innovated Responsive Service, 
 and then the flourish of the rural choir in the weekly 
 glory of its ambitious demonstration. It was better 
 set forth here, she thought, the thing they tried to 
 represent. 
 
 Again, she would go out upon the meadow slope be 
 yond it all, and become a great actress, before a bril 
 liant, spellbound audience, rehearsing scenes that she 
 had learned by heart out of Shakespeare; while a low 
 hush lay upon everything except her voice, until broken 
 at some apposite climax by the wind of an applause 
 that set the cornblades shivering, and bowed to her feet 
 the delicate, plumy panicles of the flowering grass. 
 
 She danced, she sang, she improvised; she recited 
 poems that she had written in the solitude of her room,
 
 8 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 when Aunt Esther was in the shop, and she was supposed 
 to be mending her stockings. I am afraid the stocking 
 was often put on in a hurry and the heel that should 
 have been mended pulled down and tucked into the shoe. 
 " Esther ! Es-ther ! Es-ther-JeZ / " 
 The shrill call rang from the back doorstone. 
 Estabel, in the midst of the last scene from the " Lady 
 of the Lake," was grandly elocutionizing for the King, 
 while maintaining her own pose and expression as Ellen 
 Douglas. She hurried on between the imperative calls 
 and variations of her own proper name, with Fitz- 
 James s gentle questioning, 
 
 " Hast thou no other boon to crave ? 
 No other captive friend to save ? " 
 
 "Estabel! why don t you come? Make haste; I 
 want you ! " 
 
 She made haste ; rushed on, as chorus, with the con 
 cluding lines in which her dramatic soul delighted, tak 
 ing her own part in the thrilling tableau while vividly 
 imagining to herself all the rest of it. 
 
 " His chain of gold the king unstrung, 
 The links o er Malcolm s neck he flung, 
 Then gently drew the glittering band, 
 And laid the clasp on Ellen s hand." 
 
 "Yes, auntie, what is it? " 
 
 And with suddenest change, the Lady of Loch Ka 
 trine left Stirling Castle, audience room, monarch, 
 Douglas, Malcolm, and all; the actress sprang over the 
 footlights prosaically the low fence between meadow 
 and garden among her audience, and ran swiftly up, 
 the straightest way, through the middle path, toward 
 the clothes yard and the kitchen stoop. 
 
 "What in the world is the child doing there? " 
 Another voice which Estabel had not heard had just 
 asked that. Some one had followed Aunt Esther to 
 the doorway, and stood behind her.
 
 CHARLOCK COTTAGE. 9 
 
 " Nothing, in the ivorld. She never is in the 
 world, " answered Miss Charlock. " Hurry, child ! 
 Your other aunt s come! Don t you see? Didn t you 
 hear ? What were you about ? " 
 
 "Yes, I heard. But I had to finish. I came as 
 quick as I could. I was doing the end of the Lady of 
 the Lake. Fitz- James and I, you know, were the cen 
 tre of the glittering ring, and Snowdoun s knight was 
 Scotland s king. 
 
 "You look fit to be the centre of a glittering 
 ring ! " Miss Charlock exclaimed with force. "You re 
 a glittering fiddlestick! I don t know what you will 
 do with her in Topthorpe, sister-in-law-in-law! " 
 
 With which gently humorous title of her own research 
 and application, Miss Charlock got round the difficulties 
 between distance and intimacy, cleverly compounding 
 the two.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE OTHER AUNT. 
 
 THE "other aunt " has not been properly introduced. 
 
 She was originally Miss Vera Cumsden; but in the 
 last two years, during which Estabel had been left to the 
 monotonies of Stillwick, over which her own bright, 
 shifting fancies had to play with continual transforming 
 flash of light and color to make them endurable, Miss 
 Cumsden had married, spent nine months in Europe, 
 and returned to her native country to establish herself 
 in a handsome home in Topthorpe. It does not matter 
 which American city that is; it may stand, in certain 
 respects, for any ; we will not be too local, as if to 
 charge upon any one centre peculiarities or conditions 
 that may seem invidious, or claim for it characteristics 
 of a comparative superiority. Such peculiarities are 
 less peculiar than may be commonly supposed ; the con 
 ditions and characteristics are largely typical, and may 
 be found, in but slightly varying illustration, in any 
 centre whatever of busy, striving, emulous generous 
 or petty real or pretentious human life. 
 
 Aunt Vera married and at thirty-eight years old 
 Mr. Abel Clymer. He was a chinaware merchant 
 and importer, extremely well off for that time and fash 
 ion, conspicuous indeed as a moneyed man, and fully 
 intending to be more so ; able to begin life at forty- 
 five, at a differently advanced point from that at which 
 he must have started at twenty-five. "What he may 
 have gained or lost in essentials in the years between, 
 this story, except by implication, will not undertake to
 
 THE OTHER AUNT. 11 
 
 tell. The values that he placed on things, the sur 
 roundings by which he materialized himself, may indi 
 cate results of the living of a score of years which, ex 
 cept for a record of buying and selling and getting 
 ready to be, remains perhaps a blank. 
 
 It was a very comfortable marriage. Neither party 
 had any unreasonable ideals, at least, as regarded 
 each other ; it may as well be stated here as anywhere, 
 though it will probably state itself all along, that each 
 and jointly they had certain practical ideals of means 
 and place. Abel Clymer was eager and shrewd and 
 ambitious for the means, which involved place also, 
 among his fellow aspirants in trade and on exchange ; 
 the securing of these he thought ought to include all 
 else ; but he could not attend to everything, or repre 
 sent himself everywhere, in all relations. A wife was 
 needed, and he married her ; he left the social ambitions 
 and management to her share of responsibility in the 
 partnership. 
 
 With his money and his activity and his shrewd judg 
 ment, he was of consequence among men in civil and 
 political affairs. He was on the Common Council; he 
 was at the front in any enterprise or public manifesta 
 tion which required a man of a certain amount of influ 
 ence, and of a readiness also to put time and energy 
 into the matter with zeal and pride. This brought 
 about connections which were semi-social in the degree 
 he coveted ; he hobnobbed with the masculine side of 
 Topthorpe aristocracy ; he gave, and was invited to, din 
 ners and suppers where men came or entertained whose 
 wives knew nothing about him conventionally. A wife 
 of his own would be the missing link ; there were things 
 that only a woman could do. 
 
 He had too much common sense to think that he 
 could marry direct into the highest mystic round, or 
 even to wish to do so; also, he had no mind to take 
 meek second place to his wife ; he wanted a woman with
 
 12 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 but the capacity and personality to work with him to 
 his object; to "keep up her end," he phrased it to him 
 self. He would rather earn place, as he had earned 
 money, by original effort and ability, than be lifted 
 into it over a wall. There was something of delight in 
 difficulty ; something of inspiration in a vigorous cam 
 paign. Whatever is ivorth while takes while, he re 
 flected ; that goes in the very saying. 
 
 He bought a house on Mount Street; he put it in 
 the hands of a good architect and builder, with waiting 
 orders also at a leading upholsterer s, who dealt only in 
 the best; then he and Mrs. Clymer sailed for Europe, 
 a fine thing to do in those days, and a fine thing to 
 refer to after it was done. 
 
 With this experience and prestige, and the tangible 
 evidences in elegant accumulations of foreign travel, 
 they returned in due time and took possession of the 
 showy mansion that had been made ready for them ; 
 grand in furnishings of velvet and silk and glass and 
 gilt, profuse in equipment of porcelain, crystal, and sil 
 ver and fine linen. There was a linen-room, and a 
 china-room; closets were not adequate. The china- 
 room lay in an angle between hall, back drawing-room, 
 and dining-room, accessible from all, and glitteringly 
 visible, through casually opened doors, to either. Its 
 deeply loaded shelves showed their splendid ranges from 
 behind plate-glass sliding sashes. 
 
 The recesses of the back drawing-room served as 
 library. Shelves from floor to ceiling plate-glass 
 again, and carven frames held fine array of standard 
 works, immaculate, unfingered, their ranks unbroken, 
 each answering to name and place like soldiers at roll 
 call and on parade, as yet unsummoned into action. 
 In short, the whole establishment represented an attain 
 ment in life, in all directions, yet to be. It was a 
 draft in advance. 
 
 It was all a little, nay, a good deal, in advance
 
 THE OTHER AUNT. 13 
 
 of the taste and habit of the day. Mr. Clymer was 
 ahead of his neighbors in the outward sign. All down 
 Mount Street were good, substantial houses, inhabited 
 by good, substantial families, who need hang out no 
 placard of what they meant to be ; wherein stood the 
 same old-fashioned mahogany and hair-cloth, the same 
 quaint sideboards and long sofas with rolled pillows and 
 brass rosettes, that had stood there, or elsewhere in the 
 same relations, fifty years before ; where the handsome 
 old looking-glasses, not over-big, hung above modest 
 side and card tables, instead of paneled mirrors fitted 
 to the entire walls, and resting upon low marble con 
 soles adorned with costly vases. Beautiful, rare ala 
 basters there might be, or stately bronzes ; heirlooms, 
 not things of purchase within memory of present owners, 
 people, like their ancestral properties, of a sort and 
 poise that could afford to stand as they were for a cen 
 tury ; who had at least a century behind them ; who 
 represented not a future, but a past. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Clymer, with their fine ambitions, 
 their lavish anticipations, were, after all, off time. 
 They made the mistake of hundreds ; the great secret, 
 which so few have learned, which indeed, in the con 
 trariety of circumstance, so few can compass, is to 
 coincide with hour, condition, and genuine opportunity. 
 
 The Clymers were about to bring a new element into 
 their operations. 
 
 Aunt Vera had bethought herself of her duty to her 
 niece. 
 
 A young girl, to educate among the best, to make 
 association among the best, to help them draw upon 
 their future by a hold upon the coming social order al 
 ways forming and rapidly succeeding; to entertain for 
 her, to make motive and centre of her for what they 
 could not speedily and outright do for themselves, 
 this would be a fine idea and work, at once of gener 
 osity, kindness, and utility.
 
 14 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 So the big gray horses were put to the barouche, 
 only two other families on Mount Street then kept a car 
 riage and pair, were driven around in the early fore 
 noon from the stables, and bore Mrs. Clymer away along 
 River Street to Royston Bridge and over into the wide, 
 pleasant country. 
 
 At this moment of the story they stand, flinging up 
 their heads and rattling their bright harness, before 
 Miss Charlock s front gate, under the elms. A school- 
 house nearly opposite has just poured forth its little 
 rustic crowd, which loiters in curious, astonished groups, 
 seeing the gay equipage arid taking in its wonderful de 
 tails, then scattering and running on, up and down the 
 street, to tell it all in various homes. 
 
 The nearer homes await no telling; the news has 
 announced itself. 
 
 Nobody had pulled up a front blind. The windows of 
 the best rooms were blank, the doorways were indiffer 
 ent ; but from behind the curtain edges the housewives 
 who would not stare had peeped and wondered, watch 
 ing from every little while to while, between the turn 
 ing of their steaks or bacon, and dishing up of their 
 potatoes, and later during the washing up, to see what 
 would come of it ; what would be done with the u team, " 
 how long it would stay, and who would go away at last. 
 
 "Do you s pose she s come for the gurl?" Mrs. 
 Speering was asking of her spouse, to whom she reached 
 his midday bowl of tea across the table. 
 
 "I don t s pose. I leave that to the women. S po- 
 sin never alters nor settles anything; news is bound to 
 come along in time, n it don t alwers signify, neither. 
 I c n gener ly wait, s well s not." 
 
 " Less it s fer your dinner or the lections. 
 News ain t news when it only comes afterwords, " re 
 plied the lady, unconsciously pronouncing a pun. "I 
 like a little inklin , all to myself; n so do you, only 
 you won t never talk it over." Which undoubtedly
 
 THE OTHER AUNT. 15 
 
 may be the true masculine and feminine of that interest 
 in affairs commonly set down as gossip. 
 
 Meanwhile the gray horses waited; the stately driver 
 sat statuesque upon his box; there were deepening hoof- 
 holes in the soft turf close before the gate ; inside the 
 house was commotion of suddenly broached plan, flurried 
 consideration. Miss Esther Charlock was put about, 
 irresolute. 
 
 "Let s have our dinner, anyhow, " she said. "You 11 
 have to make out with what there is, I guess; but it s 
 hot and ready, and better now than t will ever be 
 again. " 
 
 So the horses and the coachman were sent round to 
 the old Stillwick tavern, and the two aunts, with their 
 jointly appertaining niece, sat down to these few excel 
 lent things: a spider-cake, newly taken from the fire 
 in its perfection of light crispiness, split and buttered ; 
 a square of broiled salmon, delicately done to an even 
 outside brown and an even inside pink; a dish of dried- 
 apple sauce, stewed with orange peel ; a rhubarb pie 
 which had been meant for Sunday (Friday was Miss 
 Charlock s baking day), and a little pot of steaming 
 coffee. 
 
 Over these, growing comfortable, they discussed af 
 fairs more at leisure.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 BOILING UP, AND SIMMERING DOWN. 
 
 "You VE come down upon us almost like a hurri 
 cane, " said Miss Charlock, handing a cup of coffee to 
 Mrs. Clymer, and beginning to help the broiled salmon. 
 "Estabel, just dish out the apple sauce, will you? " 
 
 This was evidently to give the girl other occupation 
 than that of looking from one to the other of her aunts 
 with rapidly distending eyes. She took the spoon that 
 was placed beside the sauce dish, scooped with it a big 
 piece of butter from the pat upon a plate close by, and 
 was about transferring it to the glass saucer set for the 
 apple, when her Aunt Esther stopped her. 
 
 "What on earth are you setting out to do with 
 that? " she exclaimed. 
 
 "I don t know. I don t seem to know what s going 
 to be done with anything. I seem to be helped round 
 myself, pretty much as it happens, " returned the girl, 
 half laughing, half ashamed, dropping her hands into 
 her lap. 
 
 Miss Esther laughed too. She enjoyed the child s 
 bright ways, inconsequent and perplexing as she was. 
 In truth, she did not at all like to give her up. 
 
 "You ll know as soon as it gets straightened out," 
 she answered. "All that I ve come to yet, is that my 
 sister-in-law-in-law wants to take her turn with you. 
 You re to go to Topthorpe I suppose." 
 
 "When it all gets round to me, shall I have any say 
 about it ? " asked Estabel demurely. 
 
 "That ll depend. I don t know s you will, and I 
 don t know as you will."
 
 BOILING UP, AND SIMMERING DOWN. 17 
 
 When Aunt Esther tried to be antithetical, she was 
 very apt to be repetitive. She had no impediment of 
 speech, but she labored under certain lapses of construc 
 tion. 
 
 Estabel turned to her other aunt. 
 
 "When, Aunt Vera? " she asked. 
 
 "Why, to-day, I thought. But Aunt Esther seems 
 to think it too much in a hurry. " 
 
 "Of course it is," put in that lady. "It s like a 
 ball rolled in among a lot of ninepins. Everything 
 goes every which way. There s her new gown to finish 
 and all her things to look through guess it will be 
 looking through considerable, with the holes and tears; 
 and they 11 be all round the lot, as usual; and there s 
 a decent good-by to say. We don t send round cards 
 here in Stillwick. We were going to Henslee Place 
 to-morrow. " 
 
 " Oh, were we, Aunt Esther ? " Estabel exclaimed 
 impetuously. 
 
 "I was aimin to," Aunt Esther answered dryly. 
 "You d have known when my mind was made up." 
 
 Aunt Esther s mind was never open to inspection in 
 the making. Half her annoyance at the present mo 
 ment was that she had been surprised into the process, 
 and that it must be carried on in public. She liked 
 leisurely considerations, and decisive acts or announce 
 ments. "Put your needle in deliberately and then pull 
 the thread as smart as you please, " was her saying as 
 to any kind of work. 
 
 "Whether or no," she went on, turning to Mrs. 
 Clymer, "Estabel oughtn t to go away without a word. 
 Lucy Henslee wouldn t like it. Let her wait through 
 the fore part of the week. It s likely I may go up 
 to the city by Wednesday or Thursday. Monday and 
 Tuesday are my easy days in the shop, and I can attend 
 to fixing her up. Other times there s the bell this 
 minute ! All creation and Electry Speering will
 
 18 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 be in, now you re here. I never know whether my 
 soul s my own." 
 
 And Miss Charlock set down her cup of coffee, which 
 she had held poised before her lips while speaking, 
 pushed back her chair, and hurried out of the room and 
 across the little passage to the door that opened down 
 two steps, into the shop behind the counter. 
 
 "I wanted you to go back with me," said Aunt Vera 
 to the girl. There 11 be plenty to do there, too, to 
 get you ready. It s the last of July, and school begins 
 in September, and I want you a while first for a number 
 of reasons. Besides, when I set out for a thing, I do 
 hate not to carry it through. But I suppose we mustn t 
 worry Aunt Esther." 
 
 "Am I going to school, Aunt Vera? In Topthorpe? " 
 
 The near future was rearing itself in successive ranges 
 of high expectation, in the suddenly opened vista before 
 Estabel s vision. 
 
 "I began to think it was high time," returned Mrs. 
 Clymer. "You must have got pretty near through with 
 all you can do here in Stillwick. Sha n t you like it? " 
 
 Estabel gave her an unexpected answer. She jumped 
 up from her seat, rattling her knife and fork off her 
 plate to the floor, rushed around the little table, to the 
 serious threatening of the entire arrangement, and threw 
 her arms around Aunt Vera s neck. 
 
 " Like it ? You dear aunt ! What else could I do 
 but like it, being dug up and brought to life ? " 
 
 ".ZVbwwhat?" demanded Miss Charlock, reentering 
 in time to hear the ghastly comparison. "I suppose 
 the entire cat is out of the bag, by the yowling and 
 clawing. You d better go back to your seat, Estabel, 
 and simmer down." 
 
 Estabel slipped back to her chair, pushed away her 
 plate, laid one arm, rounded out, upon the table, and 
 planting the other elbow beside it, made a saucepan in 
 dumb crambo, by thrusting the hand up at a slant ;
 
 BOILING UP, AND SIMMERING DOWN. 19 
 
 then she put her face down into the hollow, and began 
 a bubble bubble bubble, plop, plop, like a 
 furious boil, between whose ebullitions she appealed 
 pleadingly : "If you don t bubble bubble stir 
 me up, plop, plop ! I shall bubble bubble 
 bubble boil over! I can t help it." 
 
 "I guess a good shake will do." And Aunt Esther 
 came to the rescue, seizing the illustrative saucepan 
 handle, which she switched to and fro vigorously. 
 "Hush up!" 
 
 A mingled laugh and gurgle and soft hiss, dying 
 down to silence, obeyed. 
 
 "Take me off, Aunt Esther, and pour me out! I 
 mean, pour yourself out! Tell me all about it." 
 
 Her eyes shone with pleasure and fun, as she lifted 
 her head and looked from one aunt to the other. 
 
 "Behave like a reasonable being! " ordered Miss 
 Charlock, in sublime displeasure. 
 
 She would not be amused with this. She was hurt 
 at the child s delight in leaving her. 
 
 Estabel s eyes changed their look. "I m sorry, 
 auntie," she said. "I was only coming round by de 
 grees, you know, as I thought you wanted me to. I m 
 all simmered down really and truly. I couldn t 
 help being glad; and I couldn t realize both ends at 
 once. But, " she whispered, laying her head against 
 Miss Esther s shoulder, "I didn t mean that there 
 weren t any good times with you." 
 
 "Well, that ll do," said Miss Esther, putting her 
 off, with a slight but not unkindly repellent motion. 
 "Everything s an experiment. You ve come back be 
 fore, and you may again." 
 
 "Cats and bad pennies always do. I shall not 
 forget the way, Aunt Ettie." And as if to leave a 
 break, to paragraph the conversation at a new point 
 later, she went off out of the room. 
 
 "I don t sometimes feel positively sure whether tliat
 
 20 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 child is five years old or fifteen, " said Miss Charlock 
 to her sister-in-law-in-law. 
 
 "Or fifty," suggested Mrs. Clymer. "She s a queer 
 mixture of bahy and woman. She wants companions 
 of her own age." 
 
 " Maybe, " said Miss Charlock stiffly ; and began 
 gathering up her dishes. 
 
 Estabel rejoined her in the kitchen, and helped her 
 with the wiping up. 
 
 "You needn t go to imagining, and then getting dis 
 appointed, " said Miss Esther, after a brief dignified 
 silence "over the teacups." "You re always trying to 
 walk on moonshine. You don t understand common 
 facts. You think things are when they ain t, and when 
 they ain t you think they are." 
 
 "Yes, auntie," said Estabel demurely. 
 
 "How do you expect to get through the world that 
 way ? " 
 
 "Pretty well, I guess; if I don t ever think things 
 ain t when they are." 
 
 "You do. That s what I said." 
 
 "I thought it was what you said n t." 
 
 "Chooty choo! You re always quiddlin . But I 
 know what I mean." 
 
 "And so do I," said Estabel, throwing her arm and 
 a damp towel, suddenly around Miss Charlock s neck. 
 "You mean to be real good to me, and you don t want 
 me to be unhappy. I shall never imagine the wrong 
 way about that." 
 
 "Maybe you d better go back to your other aunt 
 now," said Miss Charlock a little unsteadily. "She 11 
 wonder what we re consultin up." 
 
 Estabel snapped a little kiss under Aunt Esther s 
 ear, and departed. 
 
 Aunt Esther picked up the damp towel, and dabbed 
 it across her face. 
 
 "It s as good as all over now," she said. "It had
 
 BOILING UP, AND SIMMERING DOWN. 21 
 
 to come. I ain t complainin . Only she don t know; 
 I did n t hardly know before, myself. She 11 grow to 
 it, and look back; that s what we re all doin , all our 
 lives long. Seems to me we re on the fore seat of the 
 coach the whole journey. Once in a while it s apt to 
 make folks feel squeamy."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE HEXSLEES. 
 
 IT was settled that Estabel should remain for a few 
 days longer at Stillwick, and that on the Wednesday 
 or Thursday following, Miss Charlock should bring her 
 to Topthorpe in the stage. 
 
 "I must have gone before long," Miss Esther said, 
 "and it might as well be then. I want some lining 
 silks, and dress buttons, and woostids. I m all out of 
 shaded greens. Yes; I 11 be along by Wednesday, or 
 Thursday at the outside." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had to be satisfied. 
 
 It was before the days when every little outlying 
 village had its hourly train by steam to the metropolis. 
 Stillwick lay apart, between two of the great railroad 
 ribs that intersected the State ; in a lobe, as it were, of 
 the leaf so clasped together by the iron skeleton lines. 
 It was a good while before the slenderer network of 
 country roads and pikes was replaced by the branching 
 reticulations that cut across everywhere to-day, in won 
 derful, confusing simplification of consolidated systems. 
 The twelve miles between Stillwick and Topthorpe were 
 traversed in and out, morning and night, by the street 
 car antetype, the long omnibus, still called "the stage." 
 It held fourteen. Even so, it was rarely full. It is 
 difficult for us, who can clearly remember these things, 
 to realize that our own lives cover all the quickly suc 
 ceeding changes from the heavy coach for nine inside to 
 rapid transit over the same roads every day for thou 
 sands by the electric wave. 
 
 Estabel would far rather have gone in luxurious state,
 
 THE HENSLEES. 23 
 
 in the open barouche, for the long drive through the 
 Marsden woods and the sweet azalea swamps, and over 
 the long bridge into the quiet end of the big city, it 
 wasn t so very big, then, except relatively, and that 
 way isn t so very much bigger now, compared with 
 Greater Everything ; turning off along the pleasant 
 river thoroughfare into which Mount Street and its 
 parallels ran down, and arriving grandly at the very 
 door, than to go pitching and racketing all the way 
 in the long, covered-up, musty stage, with her feet in 
 the straw and her back to half the prettiness along the 
 road, and then have to keep on down the Bridge 
 Avenue, to the business heart of Topthorpe. 
 
 But Henslee Place was a heavy weight in the other 
 scale ; and she had no choice about it, either. 
 
 Henslee Place lay upon the other side of the wide 
 piece of woodland across the brook. A near bit of this 
 woodland belonged to Miss Charlock s modest estate; 
 just enough for her to cut firewood from without fear 
 of absolutely clearing away the lovely shade ; the greater 
 part was the extension on this side of the Henslee pro 
 perty. The brook wound through the whole with charm 
 ing bends, the path from the Charlock meadows crossing 
 it twice. 
 
 The Henslee house was in that border of Stillwick 
 which approached the bay, near the mouth of Stillwick 
 River, into which the brook with its clear tribute pre 
 sently ran. 
 
 Farther down was a shipyard, where in years past 
 vessels of the early simple order had been built and 
 launched for the then lively trade of the neighboring 
 town of Peaceport, by the brothers Henslee, of the last 
 generation, one of whom, the father of Colonel Henslee, 
 had built also the generous mansion standing between the 
 quiet country side and the busy shore. The uncle had 
 never married, and the handsome double inheritance 
 had fallen accordingly to its present owner.
 
 24 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 The business at the shore had changed. The ship 
 yard was no longer such, but had been long occupied 
 on a lease of twenty years, as a lumber wharf. Col 
 onel Henslee had so disposed of it, with the assent of 
 his son, a prospering Topthorpe merchant ; that gentle 
 man s business having not yet grown to such dimen 
 sions, or taken precisely such direction, as to suggest 
 including building combinations. "Everything may 
 come round again in good time," the old colonel had 
 said to him. "When the lease is up, Harry will be 
 of age, and it will probably have come into your hands. 
 Then you can together do what you think fit." 
 
 Secluded from both shore and village, in an open 
 glade of its own little forest, the high road bending 
 around it some furlong or more away, a private drive 
 giving access thence, which wound on to join the high 
 way again near Centre Village, the homestead house 
 represented a certain old world dignity, and gave its 
 name and consequence to the whole immediate neighbor 
 hood. The lower end of the town was called Henslee 
 Corner. 
 
 From Miss Charlock s cottage to the Place there was 
 a distance of a mile and a half by the open road, les 
 sened to three quarters of a mile by taking the sweet 
 woodway, which of course in summer was always done 
 in walking. And it was only in summer that Miss 
 Charlock ordinarily made visits to Cousin Lucy. So 
 that perhaps only once or twice in a season Estabel ever 
 had the pleasure of what was to her like walking into 
 some charming dream or story. 
 
 The wife of Colonel Henslee had been a Charlock; 
 and the Charlocks had been more proud of their side 
 of the alliance than of the high state into which at the 
 time it had seemed to lift the lady, for Eleanor Char 
 lock had been a great beauty. Her father, Dr. Char 
 lock, had a good practice in Topthorpe, but it was 
 without special prestige or claim, by other than her own
 
 THE HENSLEES. 25 
 
 supreme personal charm, that his daughter had been 
 taken up into Topthorpe society of the choicest, and 
 there idolized ; had shone for two brilliant winters, a 
 star in the constellation of the zenith ; had had her 
 
 picture painted by A , and visited in his rooms by 
 
 continual crowds of friends, and of outside people who 
 never saw her actually as there represented, in her 
 beautiful ball dress of pale green silk, shimmering, deli 
 cate, like young birch leaves in the early summer, and 
 the clusters of violets in her sunny hair and among the 
 laces on her bosom. The picture hung now in the great 
 hall at Henslee Place ; and before it Estabel Charlock 
 stood and worshiped, in every possible moment of her 
 rare visits. 
 
 Old Colonel Henslee was a feeble man now, past 
 eighty; his daughter Lucy, who had had much of her 
 mother s beauty in her younger days, and was now a 
 gently faded, graceful woman of fifty, had never mar 
 ried, and was companion and nurse to her father, living 
 with him in a quietness that seemed dead to lookers on, 
 who wondered at her serene patience ; but that was 
 filled, as all true quietness under the hand of God is 
 sure to be, with a peace and promise that are not for 
 any eager bustle or successes of the world to give. 
 
 Lucy Henslee was a devoted daughter and a loving 
 sister. The character and well-earned position of the 
 Topthorpe merchant were her joy and pride. He re 
 presented to her all the growing greatness of the yet 
 comparatively young city, to whose growth, indeed, he 
 contributed a strong force and a certain personal as 
 well as commercial leadership. His one son, Harry, 
 just out of school, where he had had the best practical 
 education of the day, not choosing a college course and 
 a profession, which were then held more distinct than 
 now from a training and occupation in affairs, was in 
 a counting-house clerkship with the solid, old-fashioned 
 firm of Blunt and Sterne, neighbors of Henslee and Com-
 
 26 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 pany on the same wharf; his father wisely determining 
 that he should have the regular discipline of a good 
 apprenticeship, with none of the possible or inferential 
 advantages or indulgences of his own office. 
 
 The boy was a bright fellow of eighteen, the pride 
 and pleasure of his Aunt Lucy, with whom he spent 
 most of his holidays, having the run and freedom of the 
 whole place, and all thereon and therein ; this only re 
 presenting what was likely to come to him in actual 
 eventual proprietorship. It was a safe relaxation ; the 
 youth was clean and free of all more doubtful or danger 
 ous divertisement. 
 
 Estabel and Harry had been good comrades in other 
 years, when the long school vacations had brought him 
 to Stillwick. Aunt Esther in those days had more 
 often taken the little girl to Henslee Place ; there had 
 begun to be a difference in the freedom of visits since 
 the young second cousins had got into their teens. 
 There was a little complication of reasons for this, 
 which bore instinctively upon Miss Esther s judgment 
 without direct analyzing, and to Estabel would not be 
 patent at all. 
 
 Miss Charlock perceived that her niece was fast grow 
 ing up in one way, while in another and more important 
 sense she showed only very uncertainly that she grew at 
 all. It was not an advantageous time with her. It 
 was better more improving, Miss Charlock said to 
 herself that she should go to Henslee Place when 
 only Aunt Lucy was there, and for at least a part of 
 the day sit down quietly at her needlework with her two 
 elders, or be allowed to read to them, which she did 
 willingly and very well, than to keep on scouring the 
 woods or paddling in the brook and fishpond with the 
 tall fellow who had got out of school and round jackets, 
 and into frock- tails and a store. Underneath was also 
 a motive, if that which was not permitted to move 
 anything may be called a motive, an instinct of re-
 
 THE HENSLEES. 27 
 
 straint springing from a consciousness she did not care 
 to define, that some time or other, something might 
 happen so, or she might he imagined to be thinking 
 that it might happen, that a Charlock should again 
 be mistress of the grand old Henslee house and its sur 
 roundings. 
 
 Estabel was by no means just yet in the phase of her 
 girlhood which such possibility would be most likely to 
 approach; she had "got ever so much to come to," Miss 
 Charlock realized and often said within herself; it was 
 wiser to keep her back, in her raw unformedness, from 
 premature exposure to any outside judgment ; which last 
 reason, more specific than she would have allowed, lay 
 secretly perhaps at the root of the whole argument. 
 Miss Esther Charlock was a very good woman ; she was 
 also, as far as her light and experience went, a very 
 judicious one. 
 
 For their present outing they took Saturday, usually 
 a very busy day in the shop ; but Miss Charlock had 
 anticipated by extra industry, and all the trimmings 
 and finishings she had promised for the week were ac 
 complished and ready for delivery ; and her neighbor 
 and occasional substitute, Eliza Gillespy, would come 
 over and sit behind the counter with her quilt-piecing, 
 for which Miss Charlock gave her liberal privilege with 
 the scrap- drawer, that held such richness of small ribbon 
 ends and gown snips. Also there was laid for her in 
 the corner parlor a nice little cold luncheon, ham 
 and bread and butter and custard, with tea ready in 
 the brown teapot, for which she could put a stick into 
 the stove and boil water to brew for herself. The an 
 ticipation of all which rejoiced Eliza s heart, or some 
 part of her economy close by. 
 
 Moreover, though she would not deliberately go pry 
 ing round, she was above all that, thank goodness, 
 she had a lively, healthy interest in whatever might 
 casually be manifest behind the scenes; she loved her
 
 28 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 neighbors affairs as she loved her own, which was good 
 Christian feeling, and honorably gratified by this inti 
 macy of service. 
 
 Miss Gillespy was about to have a very important and 
 delightful day, not the least bit lonesome, she knew; 
 for her being there would bring more or less dropping-in 
 company of her own sympathetic sort, and custom, she 
 argued friendlily, to the counter. She was indeed gen 
 erously ambitious to make a good day s sale, and of 
 this Miss Charlock was, on her part, comfortably aware.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A MORNING WOOD-WALK. 
 
 ESTABEL was by no means to wear her best dress to 
 Henslee Place. There was but one for her to begin 
 with in Topthorpe ; and there were too much woods and 
 water, too much fruit shrubbery and orchard at Cousin 
 Lucy s, to trust her in with choice apparel. 
 
 The best dress, except one "veriest-best " silk, 
 was a pale fawn-colored chally, with delicate crimson 
 and dark-green sprigs. When she wore this she was 
 quite fine, but in an elegant duress. She was far hap 
 pier in her French print, of a close-running brown figure 
 on a white ground. Aunt Esther made her take a 
 sleeved apron, too, to put on as might be needed. 
 
 Aunt Esther could not see everything, look the girl 
 over as she would. Estabel had great dread of delays 
 when pleasure was on foot. She would pin out of sight 
 a pinnable rent ; she would move with cautious quietness 
 when the hem of her white skirt was not quite beyond 
 suspicion ; she would keep one glove in her hand until 
 they were well on their way and she was admonished to 
 put it on, because of a rip which she might have been 
 at the last minute sent upstairs to mend. "You never 
 see Cousin Lucy with a rip in her glove, " Aunt Esther 
 would say. 
 
 Aunt Esther had learned to be wary of unusual se- 
 dateness. 
 
 "What is it this time? " she demanded, on the Satur 
 day morning when they were leaving the house, and 
 Estabel demurely kept behind her, instead of dancing
 
 30 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 along down the field. She had already discovered a 
 long opening in the seam of a stocking, and had sewed 
 it up with the leg across her lap, while Estabel, only 
 half dressed, stood stork-fashion, with excellent poise 
 and entire composure. 
 
 "There s something, yet," declared Miss Charlock. 
 
 "Oh, no, I guess not. I m all right enough." And 
 Estabel chasseed round in front of her aunt with a 
 prancing curve that kept her face to face, and skipped 
 backward, lifting the skirt of her frock above the im 
 maculate ruffle of her petticoat. But there was a pin 
 behind in the placket-slip, which would otherwise have 
 extended far toward the hem. 
 
 Estabel was not willfully deceptive ; she was curiously 
 frank and truthful, when brought to the question, in 
 anything essential ; her ideas of essentials were different 
 from Miss Charlock s, that was all; she really thought 
 her way of repairing mishaps was as good as any, if she 
 could only be let alone. She was always quite confident 
 of her little defects being secure from ordinary observa 
 tion ; the only thing was to escape a military inspection. 
 Estabel had not come yet to that deep-reaching, inclu 
 sive development of the truth actually in her, which in 
 after life made her precise and orderly to the most 
 hidden stitch and the innermost corner. Truth and 
 thoroughness had not revealed to her their beautiful 
 identity. 
 
 "You ivon t be all right enough, if you don t look 
 where you re going, and keep on the path," returned 
 Miss Charlock, as at this moment they came to the 
 crossing of the brook, and entered the wood-hollow. 
 And Estabel obeyed, falling behind again ; for it would 
 not be well to brush too carelessly against a bush, or 
 risk the losing of the one small pin, which was all she 
 had been able, in her hurry, to find. It would be ter 
 rible to have to turn back now. 
 
 The wood-hollow was lovely, full of ferns, and low-
 
 A MORNING WOOD-WALK. 31 
 
 running vines, and catbrier climbing and tangling among 
 elders and young birches ; tall pines and hemlocks spring 
 ing in fine upward parallels and making charming vistas 
 that unrolled their changes at every step through the 
 apparently endless reaches of forest growth, not dense 
 enough to be impenetrable or gloomy anywhere ; under 
 foot, the crisp or velvety mosses, the brown pine nee 
 dles, the shining little creeping vines ; the summer sun 
 light glimmering down into aisles and recesses above 
 which lifted the far, still arches of the blue; across 
 these, here and there, a white cloud floating ; a veery 
 sending its sweet, pathetic warble from some unseen 
 height ; a savanna sparrow lisping his " sip, sip, sip, " 
 from the brushwood of a warm hollow ; a peewee thrust 
 ing his sharp little reiterated two notes persistently 
 across melody or silence ; along with the rest, more or 
 less distinctly as the path wound near or far, the happy 
 tinkle of the brook, making its way onward like a liv 
 ing hope, into things unknown but great and sure ; 
 all these made up a parable of deliciousness and imme 
 diate satisfying and unstinted promise to the young 
 heart so freshly in tune, with strings unslackened and 
 unstrained, which carried the young feet along so lightly, 
 that keeping after Miss Charlock s heavier, slower step 
 in the often narrowing way, they could but lilt and 
 spring, unseen, in relief of eager, undemanded energy. 
 
 It was a rapture of sameness - a sameness that might 
 have lasted the day through without tiring the same 
 ness of a quiet ecstasy. 
 
 Estabel was gladder in it than commonly; she had 
 something in reserve. One pleasure is intensified by an 
 other on its certain way ; she had a new delight in her 
 own life to match with the jubilance of bird and brook 
 and growing green ; a pervading sense, subtler than 
 sound or sight or smell, identified itself with tones and 
 things and fragrances ; something freshened and per 
 fumed all her quickened feeling; it was that she, like
 
 32 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 the trees and vines, was at last to grow, and come to 
 be what she was meant for, like the birds, to sing her 
 own life-song in freedom and sunshine ; like the brook, 
 to go on and find other haunts, nooks, openings ; to get 
 into the great, brave River at last ! 
 
 She was going to Topthorpe. That meant going to 
 learn, to enjoy, to have things happen ; it meant seeing 
 and knowing what was in the wise and gay and grown-up 
 world beyond Stillwick; beginning to grow up, herself, 
 and of course to be wise and gay and busy. 
 
 It meant, first, and delightfullest with near delight, 
 being among others like herself; young with the young; 
 with girls, girls, girls ! 
 
 Estabel s thought was just brimful with that mono 
 syllable. It kept saying itself over and over in inward 
 utterance and secret hearing. The happy plural means 
 so much to her who is of it in the singular, who is a 
 part of the beautiful possibility that is half the human 
 future. Girlhood means fun and friendship ; it reaches 
 forward and holds all the blessed dream of life, being 
 itself its pure, fresh reenforcement. It stands for the 
 nature which is the making of love and home and 
 sweetness ; the grace and beauty of bright social inter 
 course. It is the impersonation of the shielded purity, 
 the gentle strength, to which a whole world looks for its 
 sanifying and best maintenance. 
 
 And the seeking of girlhood to girlhood in this open 
 ing promise of everything is the most exquisite sympathy 
 of the woman nature. 
 
 "I am going to be a girl, among the girls! " Estabel 
 sang to herself, all this sweet morning, in the wood- 
 walk. 
 
 Ah, but there are girls, and girls ; as the dearest 
 lover of them all must allow. The old world still lays 
 its formative hand upon the new, for the better or the 
 worse ; the initial force may warp or straighten, but it 
 is there ; influence overlaps ; history repeats ; life and
 
 A MORNING WOOD-WALK. 33 
 
 motive illustrate themselves over and over; it is an old 
 fugue tune, an antiphon ; fresh voices catch up word and 
 strain that are never wholly dropped ; society begins 
 itself again in the schoolroom. 
 
 Estabel was going out into the world ; what it would 
 be to her would depend upon where she would be able 
 to take it. All there was here beauty, quietness, 
 suggestiveness of nature, room for happy imagination 
 was open to her. She supposed she was going from 
 this into a like yet larger freedom ; she might find she 
 was coming up against certain closed doors. 
 
 There is a fairy tale in which the heroine sails to an 
 enchanted island; its beautiful shore lies stretched in 
 light before her ; its banks are golden green, its flowers 
 in their sweet splendor are as jewels ; its trees wave 
 majestic, tender greeting ; under their arcades long 
 natural avenues wind and unclose in grand, still reaches ; 
 from among them, distantly rise fair palace walls, and 
 the doors of them stand open ; she thinks she has but 
 to disembark and enter into all. But as she tries to 
 land, she finds herself against an invisible wall of ada 
 mant, through which the vision shines ; the crystal barri 
 cade lifts itself from the water s edge to the very sky; 
 not a bird, even, can fly over.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 HENSLEE PLACE. 
 
 WHEN Miss Charlock and Estabel emerged from the 
 forest path into the open pleasance about Henslee Place, 
 crossing the brook at the edge of the wood over flat 
 stepping-stones, and passed around to the stately front 
 upon the lawn, Estabel relegated all else and different 
 to a corner in her mind which she closed as upon a trea 
 sure, to be no longer handled at the moment, but kept 
 for an after drawing forth and delectation. She re 
 verted instantly to her childish delights ; she had a 
 whole day before her to be happy in, in the rare old 
 way. Perhaps some instinct bade her to make much of 
 it, lest it might not come just so again. 
 
 The very face of the old house was grandly hospi 
 table, invitingly and amply gracious. A double flight 
 of steps led up to the door, curving from either side 
 past the bricked basement to the portico from which 
 opened the broad hall ; thence wide doorways gave en 
 trance right and left to drawing-rooms, library, and 
 dining-room ; these communicating with each other 
 through double arches with folding doors, flanking the 
 wide chimneys. Between these double arches were 
 shelves shut in with sliding sashes, filled, as fitted the 
 neighborhood in case, with books, lovely china, or rare 
 old curios. 
 
 Paintings, not too many, hung upon all the walls. 
 The furnishings were simple but solidly dignified, ample 
 in form and comfort. 
 
 Deep, luxurious sofas, wide window seats well cush-
 
 HENSLEE PLACE. 35 
 
 ioned, low rockers, slight, graceful chairs of such work 
 manship that their delicate frames had lasted in their 
 first perfection through three generations, tables of fine 
 old woods, cabinets carved and brass mounted, round 
 convex mirrors over the chimneys, silver sconces at the 
 corners of the same, now, in summer time, huge Indian 
 jars upon the hearths, filled with fresh greenery or tall 
 lilies, or clouds of smoke-tree and honesty blossoms. 
 
 In the midst of all, to-day, and usually, Cousin Lucy, 
 quietly busy at her work table with its swinging bag of 
 fluted green silk and upper fittings of drawers and cun 
 ning side compartments. A little way off, nearer the 
 window, in his easy chair, the old, old man who for 
 more than fifty years had been the master; who, most 
 wonderful of all to Estabel, had been the husband of 
 that radiant woman who had never grown old, whose 
 full-length picture filled that wall-space in the hall op 
 posite the great staircase, and, as beseemed the mistress 
 of the mansion, gave first welcome to incoming guest, 
 as if stepping forward with most smiling grace through 
 a gold-framed doorway. 
 
 There was enough here to dispel the new and present 
 dream, and carry the young girl s fancy and delight 
 back into what had been heretofore the one fair visible 
 romance of her life. 
 
 They had seedcakes and some tiny glasses of Greek 
 wine, while Colonel Henslee took his tumbler of hot 
 wine whey and a biscuit ; then the needlework came 
 out, and the proper hour was spent in hemming cambric 
 and thriftily " transferring " French embroidery to fresh 
 delicate muslin, while Cousin Lucy read aloud from 
 " Barnaby Ruclge, " and the colonel listened and dozed 
 in his armchair, and the old clock on the stair-landing 
 munched up the minutes with a dry, regular grind, like 
 a cow cropping grass. 
 
 Then came the two o clock dinner, timed by order of 
 latest gentility, arrived at in long, gradual advance
 
 36 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 from old New England habit, in which the mornings 
 began with five o clock breakfasts after an hour in field 
 and dairy, and the chief meal was spread at eleven of 
 the forenoon. 
 
 After that Estabel was free. The colonel took an 
 acknowledged nap, and Cousin Lucy led the way out 
 into the garden, whose border walks were shaded at near 
 regular intervals by outside trees, while its inner square 
 lay open to the sun. The ladies parasols supplied all 
 other needed screen. 
 
 The descent toward the garden from the house was 
 by a flight of broad, shallow, semi-circular steps leading 
 from the back portico to the carriage drive, which here 
 passed, between fine level swards of grass, to the stables 
 at the right. Directly opposite, beyond grass and 
 gravel, opened the little white gate in the paling, Avhich 
 gave entrance to the charming inclosure. Within the 
 fence a rose hedge divided to offer passage. 
 
 A tour of the garden was de rigueur in all visits to 
 Henslee Place. One was always led to the left, down 
 to the corner where the roses gave place to currant and 
 gooseberry bushes, these lining the boundary till the 
 next turn, where, like a relief of guard, began the 
 raspberry vines, laden in their season with amber and 
 crimson thimbles, whose clean hollows loosened them 
 selves from their central cores at perfect ripeness, and 
 dropped their pretty cups and balls in superfluous profu 
 sion upon the ground beneath. 
 
 In the great square of the middle garden were straw 
 berry and asparagus beds, outlined by rows of tall lilies 
 and sweet phlox, larkspur, hollyhocks, with mignonette 
 and ladies delights about their feet. In the spring 
 there had been daffydowndillies, tulips, and narcissus; 
 along the inner edge of the upper path was a thicket of 
 sweet peas. Reaching this upper path, and turning the 
 third corner, you might pass along between grape trel 
 lises and a range of beehives on the one hand, and the
 
 HENSLEE PLACE. 37 
 
 sweet peas on the other, to the rose line, and so down 
 to the first entrance; or you might keep on, through a 
 turnstile, to the great three acres of orchards, cherry, 
 and plum, peach, pear, and apple ; the succession of 
 whose fruit offered bounty the whole summer through, 
 and into the golden autumn. 
 
 There were no "yellows" then, to blast the peach; 
 the curculio had not taken the plum by eminent domain ; 
 the Porters and the summer spice-apples and the pear- 
 mains, the early russets and the gorgeous Baldwins came 
 in turn and in perfection. Truly, the Henslee gardens 
 were worth pilgrimage. One cannot but pause to recall 
 in detail what now remains but in a fragrant tradition, 
 like the legend of the First Garden. 
 
 It was the beginning of emancipation for Estabel, 
 this after-dinner walk; it was almost perfect pleasure; 
 but she was still in conventional restraint, behaving 
 with a careful propriety in the staid companionship of 
 her elders. The real joy of liberty was when their tour 
 had ended, and they reached the house again, giving 
 leave to the child to go her way among the bees and the 
 butterflies, the birds and the breezes " only to come 
 back whole if she could, " as Aunt Esther charged 
 her, not without sarcasm. 
 
 At such a moment the whole world was her own ; life 
 was round and complete ; what mattered it for garment ? 
 She sprang forth into her privilege ; the summer after 
 noon was endless ; it would last till night ; what can 
 the years do more ? 
 
 Into the beginning of this long, lovely period came 
 to-day a surprise of good fellowship. As they passed 
 down from the orchard behind the garden into the grav 
 eled way, Harry Henslee met them, bareheaded, eager, 
 his straw hat in his hand, fanning his hot face. He 
 had walked from Peaceport, whither he had come from 
 Topthorpe by the railroad. He was off duty early; his 
 Sunday holiday at Stillwick was lengthened.
 
 38 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 They welcomed him in; gave him cold chicken and 
 bread and butter, and lemonade. Then the fatigue of 
 the last hour was nowhere; it might have been a year 
 ago. 
 
 "Come, Esther, we ll go down to the brook," he 
 said. "Round through the orchard, and get peaches. 
 No, auntie, I haven t time for pie." 
 
 Estabel had had peaches, but was right willing to go, 
 either way; it pleased her that Harry wanted her, and 
 that he would not wait for pie. "I know where the 
 best rareripes are," she said. "And down in the 
 meadow there are cardinal flowers." 
 
 So the pair went off, after deliciousness and glory. 
 
 The two women, left to their quiet, stole each a 
 glance at the other. 
 
 One was wondering if the other "thought." The 
 other was questioning if the one "liked." Each cov 
 ered her own instinctive querying with an inward ignor 
 ing and hushing up, her glance with gently dropping 
 eyelids. 
 
 They talked about patterns for a new sleeve, and a 
 recipe for elderberry wine.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 PREDICAMENT. 
 
 THE brook ran quietly along here, through the level 
 of the meadows, which it drained well, leaving them 
 rich for their grass crops, but not marshy. It broad 
 ened out to a pond in a deep natural basin a little way 
 on, at the foot of the slope from the Henslee orchards. 
 A few rods farther still, at the outlet of the basin, a 
 slight dam had been constructed, with a weir, to keep 
 back the fish and stock the pond. Around the margin, 
 the low banks held in their curves patches of green pads 
 and sweet white lilies. Farther back, on each side, the 
 first blazing torches of the cardinals were lifted up. 
 
 Harry and Estabel had come straight down to the 
 brook from the orchard, along the side line of the gar 
 den. Here the stream was narrow ; farther up were 
 the stepping-stones by which Estabel and her aunt had 
 crossed in the morning. Opposite, the fringe of the 
 woods offered shade. 
 
 "We 11 go over presently, " said Harry, "and finish 
 eating up our peaches. Then we can go down to the 
 pond. I ve got a raft there now; did you know it? " 
 
 "No. How superb! " responded Estabel. 
 
 Harry stooped down and put both his hands in the 
 water, letting it run over them in. swift cool ripples. 
 
 "That s to baptize away the touch of the hides," he 
 said, as he lifted them out, and shook the bright drops 
 off. "You don t know what it is, to get away into 
 this, from the skins and the casks and the gunnybags, and 
 from standing on the hot wharf, checking off invoices."
 
 40 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I know what it is to get out into it from almost 
 nothing," said Estabel. "I don t wonder you think 
 of being baptized. I feel as if I were just born! " 
 
 Harry sprang across the narrow bit of water. "Can 
 you do it, if I give you a hand ? " he asked, turning 
 round and stretching out the offered help. 
 
 "I can do it without," said Estabel proudly; and 
 with a quick jump she was beside him. 
 
 "Very well -for so young an infant," he declared 
 gravely. "But you ve lost some of your peaches." 
 
 "I haven t as many pockets as you have. Of course 
 they rolled. But there are enough safe yet," holding 
 out her broad-brimmed hat, which she had tied up by 
 the strings, gypsy-fashion, to serve as fruit-basket. 
 
 Her hair was tossed about her temples, where the 
 new little locks were short, and the wind had ruffled 
 them out of their straightness ; even the braid behind 
 was rubbed and loosened until its turns had expanded 
 from their slender primness, and had a soft fluff upon 
 them. The pale color glinted in the sunlight. Her 
 olive gray eyes flashed golden sparkles with fun and 
 happiness. Everybody I don t care who has 
 pretty moments; this was one of Estabel s. 
 
 They ate their peaches, sitting under an oak; then 
 they went down the meadow path along the brookside. 
 
 Estabel filled her hat with cardinals. 
 
 "Wait for the water lilies; they re better worth 
 while ; these always fade so soon, " said Harry ; and 
 then, round a clump of water-birches, they came sud 
 denly upon a coterie of the dainty things close in beside 
 the bank, leaning their sweet, heads this way and that 
 among the broad leayes, and turning up golden hearts 
 full toward the sun ; or floating, sheathed in pink and 
 olive, their waiting buds upon the still surface of the 
 miniature bay. 
 
 "There isn t a much better place than this; I 11 cut 
 a crotched stick, and we can hook them in, " said
 
 PREDICAMENT. 41 
 
 Harry. "And presently we 11 get round on the raft. 
 Hello! it s over there on the other side! Never 
 mind; you stay here; and don t get in. I 11 go across 
 and fetch it." 
 
 He ran back around the birches. Estabel stayed, 
 and hooked the lilies by their long stems; presently 
 she had her hat heaped up with a coil of them, the buds 
 and blossoms peeping out and dropping over the brim. 
 She had to tie the strings tightly across, to hold the 
 treasure in. 
 
 Harry appeared in a few minutes on the opposite 
 bank ; he seemed to find some difficulty with the raft, 
 which was partly bedded in the mud; the water in the 
 pond was low. He looked about for a pole ; Estabel 
 understood his movements perfectly; just out of his 
 apparent sight and reach, she thought she discerned, 
 under some weeds and flags, the thing he wanted, which 
 had been used as a rafting pole. 
 
 " Down there ! " she shouted, pointing eagerly ; but 
 he had turned away, and was running up the hill, mak 
 ing for the orchard bars, which happened to be con 
 structed of long, light saplings. 
 
 "What fun ! " cried Estabel. "I must go and help ! " 
 
 Back around the little birch copse she ran; measured 
 with quick eye widths and distances, and found the 
 place where Harry must have made his second jump. 
 It was a considerably broader space than they had 
 leaped before, but Estabel was not daunted. 
 
 A flat stone lay just under the low bank, at the edge 
 of the water. "I suppose he did it standing, from 
 that," she said. "I 11 have to take a run for it." 
 
 She went back up the gentle slope, turned at the dis 
 tance of a few yards, and started. She made a spring 
 step to the flat stone, and another instant bound for 
 ward ; but the impetus was broken, she fell just 
 short, and came down, scrambling and dragging, upon 
 the slimy edge. Knees and feet entrammeled them-
 
 42 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 selves in the strained skirts, which they held down into 
 the mud. Front gathers gave way ; a hook behind 
 burst off ; the loose placket fell apart ; with a backward 
 struggle that sent her heel through the hem, she got 
 free, and picked herself up; but the gown was dropping 
 about her feet. 
 
 "Bother petticoats!" she objurgated, gathering the 
 wreck around her; "and the pin s lost! " There was 
 only one pin in the world for her that morning, and it 
 was gone. 
 
 She had to come out from the sheltering shrubbery, 
 holding her unlucky garment together with a vindictive 
 clutch. The front was stained and plastered with brown 
 brook mud. She had left her hat with the lilies on the 
 other side. Her pretty moment was in the past. The 
 present was a very ugly one indeed. 
 
 She stood still where she was. Harry, coming down 
 with a heavy pole across his shoulder, threw his burden 
 upon the grass, and hurried toward her. 
 
 "I m all gone to pieces! " she exclaimed, with ab 
 surd pathos. " I met a fool in the forest, she lapsed 
 into quotation, " a motley fool ; a miserable world ! 
 Motley s the only wear, you see. I jumped the 
 brook again, and the fool was near drowned in it. 
 I felt like just staying there and weeping in the need 
 less stream, but that wasn t the fool, you know, it 
 was the stag. Oh, I m all mixed up! Don t be pro 
 voked with me ! " 
 
 "Nonsense! What in the Lord s world did you do 
 it for?" he demanded, after the man s fashion, ever 
 since Adam, when a woman gets herself, and him by 
 any implication, into a hobble. The ministering of 
 masculine angelhood is so apt to be, in reverse order 
 to that of the feminine, most constant in our hours of 
 ease. 
 
 This time, no doubt, there was reason in reproach. 
 
 "You needn t swear!" Estabel retorted; and got
 
 PREDICAMENT. 43 
 
 the better of him there ; though if he had been older, 
 and less a gentleman, he might have sworn more em 
 phatically. 
 
 "I told you to stay where you were." 
 
 "I didn t." 
 
 "And not to get in." Here the lip muscles quivered, 
 in despite of the sternness. 
 
 "I did." 
 
 "So I perceive. I hope you are pleased with the 
 result." 
 
 "I in satisfied, if you are; and I guess you must be, 
 for it s proved you were in the right of it." 
 
 They looked straight in each other s eyes, and both 
 laughed out. 
 
 It was a very prettily rounded little scrap ; if they 
 had been ten years older they could not perhaps have 
 done it better. 
 
 "Where s your hat?" 
 
 " Over there, where the rest of me was to have 
 been." 
 
 "I 11 go and get it." 
 
 "Thank you. And please, then, keep on up the 
 other side of the brook with it. I m sorry, Harry, 
 I ve spoilt your afternoon." 
 
 "Oh, I don t care. I in only thinking what the two 
 aunts will say."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 I LIKE HER. 
 
 ESTABEL had plenty of time to think of that, as she 
 plodded along the meadow, often hidden by the wild 
 hush growth, and always keeping meekly in the rear of 
 Harry s stride upon the parallel path. 
 
 The young fellow never looked around, hut held a 
 certain wary under-watchfulness upon her progress, 
 without obviously using his eyes. A word or two of 
 inquiry, tossed back over his shoulder, and an answer 
 on her part, reaching his keen ear, were sufficient ; for 
 the rest, he concerned himself more manifestly in his 
 care of the hat full of lilies. 
 
 Just before they reached the stepping-stones, Estabel 
 stopped, seated herself on a dry hummock, and called 
 out: 
 
 "Go on, Harry, please, the front way; and don t 
 hurry; I shall run round through the orchard, into the 
 kitchen. Lauretta will put me to rights." 
 
 "O. K. ! Your head s level," he called back, in 
 boy vernacular; and sprung, with only one lighting on 
 the middle stone, over the crossing place. 
 
 "/could have done that!" cried Estabel the incorri 
 gible after him ; and a laughing shout returned : 
 
 "You don t need to add to this day s glory! " 
 
 He managed to give her twenty minutes grace. In 
 two more, Miss Charlock entered the kitchen. 
 
 Lauretta had basted up the slitted skirt, her 
 threaded needle being always handy in the hanging 
 cushion over the dresser, the front breadth was in
 
 I LIKE HER. 45 
 
 the tub, under her deft local manipulation, and Estabel 
 sat in the corner of the settle, her damp shoes drying 
 before the fire. An iron was already down upon the 
 coals to heat. 
 
 "Well!" was the lady s restrained but comprehen 
 sive salutation. 
 
 " I got into the mud, jumping across the brook, " 
 Estabel stated concisely. 
 
 "You re generally in the mud." 
 
 "It s a muddy world. It seems to be the chief end 
 of living to keep clear of it. I don t make out very 
 well. But there s only one thing I m really ashamed 
 about this time. It wouldn t have been so bad if I 
 hadn t pinned up the placket-hole." 
 
 " Pinned up the placket ? What had that to do with 
 it ? " 
 
 "I put my foot through, when I fell, and tore the 
 hem out." 
 
 " Well, I hope you are ashamed, " said Miss Esther 
 indignantly. 
 
 The makeshift was to her, as Estabel knew it would 
 be, the worst of the business. And now the worst was 
 out. 
 
 "I hope you are; you ought to be. The sight you 
 must have been! " 
 
 Miss Henslee stood in the doorway, just behind. 
 "Hush! " she whispered softly. "Don t you see she 
 is?" 
 
 For the color was up, painfully, in Estabel s face, 
 and her eyes were bright with proudly restrained drops, 
 for all her bravado, which kindly wise Miss Henslee 
 saw straight through, to the fineness of her full confes 
 sion. 
 
 "Lauretta will make it all right, I m sure," she 
 said. "And then you can run upstairs and tidy your 
 hair, and come back into the parlor." 
 
 The girl jumped up, stocking-footed, gownless, hair
 
 46 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 in a whirl, as she was ; a funny picture, as such re 
 garded, but with a heart in her face, as she came over 
 quickly to Miss Henslee, and put her hand eagerly into 
 that held out to meet her. " I am ashamed, " she said ; 
 "and you re ever so good, and I m not just a romp, 
 and nothing else ! " 
 
 " Chooty-choo ! " said Miss Esther Charlock. 
 
 By which originally devised expletive it was Miss 
 Charlock s custom to relieve herself of extra emotion 
 of any kind whatsoever. 
 
 Estabel took a different tone when Harry Henslee 
 commended her transformation. 
 
 "You look like a young lady again now," he said. 
 If he had not held her young ladyhood in question, and 
 thought admonishment deserved, he would not have said 
 that, and Estabel knew it. 
 
 "I m just the same, whatever I look," she answered 
 bluntly. "And I don t see the real inside difference 
 between jumping a brook to show you can be spry and 
 spunky, and keeping quiet and nice, when you want to 
 jump, to show you can be proper. It s all alike; it s 
 all just putting on! " 
 
 Naturally, Miss Henslee and her nephew commented 
 slightly, afterward, upon their young guest and the inci 
 dent. 
 
 "She s very real," said Miss Henslee. "And 
 that s at the bottom of even her odd pranks. I think 
 she has a fine nature. I like her." 
 
 "I like her, too," answered Harry. "She s jolly 
 and honest. But she ought to be smoothed down. 
 She s rough and wild. Other girls I know would stare 
 at her. She would never do in Topthorpe." 
 
 "She is going to Topthorpe next week, " said Aunt 
 Lucy. 
 
 "To stay?"
 
 I LIKE HER. 47 
 
 "To stay, and to go to school. She is to live with 
 her Aunt Clymer." 
 
 Harry whistled. "Well, won t she have a time of 
 it! " he ejaculated. 
 
 "See that she has a good time, as far as depends 
 upon you, Harry." 
 
 "Of course. A fellow isn t going to he a sneak. 
 All the same, it won t depend much on me. Those 
 Clymers haven t quite climbed, yet, and well, I 
 hope she won t wish herself back again! " 
 
 Harry Henslee was just at the point of life and cir 
 cumstance to be absorbent of manner and convention ; 
 at which point, and into which circumstance, Estabel 
 Charlock had not yet arrived. She was extremely 
 likely, if they came in contact, to rebuke a certain sub 
 servience in him to form and requirement, by her own 
 willfully accentuated independence.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 
 
 ON the Wednesday, Miss Charlock and Estabel, hav 
 ing arrived in the Stillwick stage, and transacted the 
 elder lady s business in the business quarter of the city, 
 walked up through the quieter avenues beyond the Old 
 Park, to Mount Street, reaching Mrs. Clymer s door 
 at eleven o clock, a day before, and hours earlier in 
 the day, than they had been expected. Miss Charlock 
 had fixed on Wednesday, and brought all so to bear, 
 because the semi-weekly wagon, not then distinctly 
 called "express," but only "Babson s, " which did ser 
 vice in errands and cartage between the country village 
 and the city, came in also on that day, and would bring 
 Estabel s trunk. The stage had started at a quarter to 
 eight ; had come in at good pace over the almost level 
 turnpike, having no "blocks " to encounter, no turns 
 and twists across street rails to make, not even, as it 
 happened, a "drawbridge up" to hinder it; and the 
 passengers, themselves not delayed by thronged side 
 walks and corners, or rushes at bargain counters, had 
 a fair forenoon for whatever purposes had brought them. 
 
 So our friends stood, in the plain array Miss Charlock 
 deemed fitting for the stage, and general "traveling," 
 
 she carrying in her hand a small old leather portman 
 teau, and Estabel laden with sundry dry-goods parcels, 
 
 under the marble ceiled and pillared porch which 
 arched the entrance of 84 Mount Street. 
 
 The front door was opened to their ring by a man 
 servant in a waiter s linen jacket. Black suits and
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 49 
 
 liveries were not yet an applied civilization. Notwith 
 standing the jacket, the personage had an imposing 
 air. 
 
 Miss Charlock was stepping in ; he put his uncompro 
 mising figure between her and the inner door. 
 
 Who did you wish to see, ma am? " Only the first 
 and last words betrayed the underling. The rest, and 
 the manner of it, represented the entire dignity of the 
 establishment. 
 
 "Mrs. Clymer, of course. Isn t she at home? " 
 
 "I don t know, ma am." And he made no further 
 immediate demonstration. He was deliberately taking 
 estimate. 
 
 Miss Charlock s righteous ire was roused. She was 
 therefore, on her part, extremely composed and very 
 deliberate. 
 
 "I suppose it is your business to know or to find 
 out. Had n t you better go and see?" She spoke in 
 a restrained monotone, with rising inflections. She 
 couldn t have been more English, if she had known 
 anything about being English, and had tried. 
 
 The man reached a little silver plate from a table in 
 the hall behind him, and held it out to her. 
 
 Now Miss Charlock was not absolutely unsophisti 
 cated. She knew what she had a mind to know. But 
 there was in her something of the same lineal humor of 
 irresponsibility and sharpness which in Estabel had not 
 yet been subdued to all ordinary decorums. For "Char 
 lock " is wild mustard. 
 
 Aunt Esther gravely took the plate. "Thank you; 
 what is it for ? " said she. 
 
 "Your card, if you please," answered the man, not 
 quite apprehending whether to be amused or rebuked or 
 further insolent. 
 
 "I don t carry cards. I don t advertise," was the 
 astonishing reply. 
 
 Estabel was laughing undisguisedly. This was great
 
 50 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 fun. Between the two, the servant could find no clue 
 for his appropriate behavior. 
 
 "It s your name I want, ma am," he said, with non 
 committal doggedness. 
 
 "I don t see what it can be to you. I m expected. 
 Chooty-choo ! " said Miss Charlock. 
 
 "Thank you, ma am. I couldn t go up without it." 
 
 And he departed through the house to the region of 
 back stairs, leaving the visitors in the vestibule. 
 
 Either at puzzled first hearing or on the way, he 
 confounded the difficult consonants. 
 
 "Somebody to see you, ma am, below Miss Judy 
 Kew. She says she is expected. Some kind of a shop 
 keeper, I think, ma am," he announced to Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 " Miss Judy Kew ! Expected ? Why oh is there 
 a young lady with her ? " 
 
 "Yes, ma am at least well, ma am, I really 
 couldn t make them out at all." 
 
 "The persons I expected were my niece, and the 
 relative who has had charge of her in Stillwick since I 
 went away." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer explained matters with a quite beautiful 
 self-possession, which put the whole subject at once be 
 yond inferior surmise or criticism. Mrs. Clymer had 
 a really fine way with her, when she could hold herself 
 positively. She carried over a tone she had noted and 
 admired, in books or her higher practical contacts, to 
 lesser practice with great success ; she was a good under 
 study; on the actual stage in grand performance, she 
 could not always maintain her bearing and composure ; 
 she was too apt to relapse, instinctively, into receptivity 
 and observation. 
 
 She impressed her servant. He said, "Certainly, 
 ma am; excuse me; the lady didn t quite eluci 
 date." And he retired from her presence, to retrieve, 
 as far as possible, his blunder, devoutly hoping that 
 the entire preliminary interview might not transpire.
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 51 
 
 Downstairs, a little later, he gave his own version, to 
 the amusement of the maids. 
 
 "Of course, the best of folks may have their country 
 connections," he admitted loftily, in conclusion. "But 
 you can t tell just what to do with em, when they come 
 upon you sudden, and don t show their references." 
 
 Meanwhile, in the hall, Estabel had her fun out. 
 She sat down flat upon the floor, the instant the august 
 functionary was out of sight, and rocked herself back 
 and forth with glee. "Oh, I should just like to roll! " 
 she cried. 
 
 "Get up! " commanded Miss Charlock indignantly; 
 and the girl obeyed with the agility of an acrobat. 
 For keeping still, that was another matter. She skipped 
 along, on tiptoe, over the thick, soundless carpet, peer 
 ing through the open doorways into the sumptuous 
 rooms. In the next three or four minutes she had done 
 more darting and flitting, and to more purpose, than a 
 dragon fly or a bumblebee would have done, imprisoned 
 in her place. 
 
 "Why don t you come in and sit down, Aunt Es 
 ther? " she asked, pausing at last ori the threshold of 
 the drawing-room, looking inward. Aunt Esther had 
 not dar,ed to speak while she was farther off, for fear of 
 making matters worse. 
 
 It was at this instant that the discomfited official in 
 the white jacket, approaching from the distant vista of 
 the background, perceived, as he supposed, that his tardy 
 civilities would be unnecessary, and willingly retreated. 
 
 But Miss Charlock remained unnoticed in the vesti 
 bule, motionless and resolute, like an elderly feminine 
 Casablanca, until legitimately relieved. 
 
 "Come back here! " she said, in a stern, strong whis 
 per, to her errant niece. 
 
 Estabel came back, and repeated her question. 
 
 "Because I know how to stay put when it suits 
 me. And don t you offer to step inside again, either."
 
 52 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Undaunted, in full enjoyment of the situation, Es- 
 tabel started fresh inquiry. 
 
 "Aunt Esther, do you suppose that can be the shop 
 out there ? " she demanded, nodding backward to the 
 extreme bound of her rapid explorations, where some 
 corner gleams of the gorgeous glass and porcelain de 
 partment were visible. 
 
 "You d better ask your other aunt," Miss Charlock 
 answered grimly, but with a curl at the corners of her 
 lips like a baby s when its chin is tickled. 
 
 And at that moment the other aunt appeared at the 
 head of the long staircase, and came down. 
 
 "Out here!" she exclaimed. "Why aren t you in 
 the drawing-room ? " 
 
 "The gentleman didn t invite us any further," re 
 turned Miss Charlock. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer snapped down the latch of a wall bell 
 vigorously. The white jacket reappeared. 
 
 "Take these things to the front upper room," she 
 said severely. "And have lunch upon the table at 
 twelve." 
 
 Anything like the bow, which included the three and 
 was accompanied by a quick glance of deprecation to 
 the newcomers, had certainly never been seen in Still- 
 wick. 
 
 "Archibald didn t understand," Mrs. Clymer re 
 marked slightly. 
 
 " He appeared to think he did, " returned Miss Char 
 lock. "But it wasn t of any consequence. I suppose 
 you have all sorts of folks coming to your door in the 
 city." The quiet indifference with which she accounted 
 of herself as among the indefinite all sorts of folks was 
 sublime. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer dropped it there, accepting the "no 
 consequence " with a smile ; making haste to inquire at 
 what time they had left Stillwick, and how early Miss 
 Charlock would be obliged to leave Topthorpe for her
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 53 
 
 return. "Our dinner isn t till four," she explained. 
 The Clymers were ahead in this inarch of custom also. 
 
 "That s most my tea time, generally," said Aunt 
 Esther. "But the stage don t start till half-past three. 
 You ve got a pretty complete house here, sister-in- 
 law-in-law." 
 
 She would not, for the value of all Mount Street, 
 have been guilty of the mistake of seeming purposely 
 not to notice, any more than she would have noticed 
 too effusively. 
 
 "I must take you round presently," said Mrs. Cly- 
 mer, with graciousness. "But don t call me by that 
 long name before anybody, please, " she added, laughing. 
 " Cousm-mg is old-fashioned, they say. People don t 
 call each other by relationships ; but that would need a 
 whole family Bible to unriddle every time ! " 
 
 "Oh, I didn t know. I ll bear it in mind. It 
 would be a good deal of trouble, of course, to have to 
 settle everything by the Bible, " returned Miss Char 
 lock meekly. There being no immediate remark upon 
 that, she went on: "I guess likely Estabel will have 
 considerable to find out, before she gets the knack of 
 things, even if she reads her Bible every day, which I 
 hope she will. She 11 make mistakes, and you 11 have 
 to make allowances. She thought just now your china 
 closet was Mr. Clymer s shop. She s always been used 
 to a shop opening out of the front entry, you know." 
 
 It was a remote comfort to Mrs. Clymer that the 
 stage would start at half -past three. What might hap 
 pen between now and then she dared not contemplate. 
 She need not have been worried. Esther Charlock un 
 derstood the last refinement of aggravation. The thing 
 threatened is a great deal worse than even the thing 
 done. If she had not known what to refrain from when 
 the time came, she would not have known how to terrify. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer continued bland and hospitable, serene 
 in her own superiority, even if apprehensive of the in-
 
 54 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 aptitudes of others. She took her guests to her own 
 room to lay aside their bonnets, and then around from 
 that to others, and downstairs again, through all the 
 extended show that Estahel had only peeped at. 
 
 The young girl accompanied and followed silently, 
 taking seriously her new bearings, grasping readily 
 enough her new situation. It did not seem, after all, 
 unfamiliar to her. Nothing is really unfamiliar to 
 quick young eyes or impressible young fancy. In five 
 minutes she felt already "used to things." Her large 
 imagination had not been given her for nothing. It 
 fitted itself to whatever of grandeur or luxury might be 
 presented. It had made grandeur and luxury out of 
 utmost simplicity. Now it would make matter of 
 course, of the unlimited and splendid. It is well that 
 we can all go forward of ourselves in such wise. Else 
 how can we pass at last from earth to heaven without 
 being confounded ? 
 
 Estabel was as ready made as her aunt s house and 
 furnishings. But the ready made, she was to learn, is 
 not the really made at all. 
 
 She delighted in those externals which so lavishly 
 seemed to express about her the richness of life ; it was 
 with a new delight, different from her pleasure in the 
 field and wood, different from the sedate satisfactions of 
 the old Henslee manor, with its sober plenty, its mea 
 sured, proper indulgence. This was an Arabian Night s 
 dream, in which her picture-nature could revel ; the 
 instinctive desire in her was met, her delicious ideal 
 represented in substance ; she could see and touch and 
 use the signs of it ; she could be here as a princess in a 
 palace. 
 
 She longed to be all alone, to take possession ; to 
 walk up and down these rooms, in and out their stately 
 communications, just as she had walked up and down 
 among the bean vines and the corn, only with the ima 
 gination in her set free from the transforming of place
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 55 
 
 and object, to the building up in the actual surrounding 
 wonderful stories of a new, real life, intense within her 
 now, to be realized in further circumstance and detail, 
 she never doubted, as the time went on. 
 
 Aunt Vera thought she was impressed and shy be 
 cause she did not speak. This flattered her; but if she 
 had looked deep into those glowing eyes, if she had 
 searched the subtle underplay of fine muscles about them, 
 and the secret flutter of an unloosened smile about the 
 closed but gently curving lips, she might have guessed 
 something which she could not fully know, because of 
 the want of real poetry or fancy in her own nature. Mrs. 
 Clymer was "practical," as she often said of herself; she 
 went as far as literal facts went, or she could make them 
 go in the direction of her desires, no farther. 
 
 " She looks bright, and she will get accustomed, " 
 thought Aunt Vera. "I am glad she does not stare 
 and exclaim." 
 
 Aunt Esther thought that perhaps the child was sober 
 because she was feeling the good-by to herself and the 
 old Stillwick life. 
 
 There is a world a moving, urging, palpitating 
 world in every human being which the nearest never 
 can quite penetrate. The Stillwick life was over, it 
 appeared, truly ; and here was another, altogether 
 strange and different, not yet opened. In this small 
 space of time between the two, Estabel was hurrying 
 through the panoramic scenes of a whole existence, such 
 as never had been, and never would exactly be. And 
 the two aunts the dece ex machind of the before and 
 after sat close beside her and did not know. 
 
 At three o clock Miss Charlock went. Estabel accom 
 panied her to the door, and kissed her tenderly, cling 
 ing to her a little, with a hold that lay warm against 
 Aunt Esther s heart long after. Then Mrs. Clymer 
 took the girl into her own possession and led her away 
 upstairs to the room that was to be hers. It was a
 
 56 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 large chamber, looking out, happily, not on confronting 
 brick walls, but across an open space between Mount 
 Street and the next parallel. In this space were scat 
 tered trees, over roughly broken ground partly green 
 with grass and weeds. It was such a piece of land as 
 Topthorpians still living can well remember, a rem 
 nant of old garden or still more ancient pasture, marked 
 out for eligible building sites, but not yet so appropri 
 ated. In the middle, a considerable round had been 
 railed in, sodded evenly, and a graveled path made 
 through, with iron posts limiting to foot passage an 
 entrance at either end, at the top of two stone steps. 
 About the little park ran a street way, passable, but 
 not macadamized to its final smoothness. The rest was 
 rough land, as beforesaid; there was room for perhaps 
 six houses of generous proportions on each side. It 
 was intended only for fine mansions, as may by and by 
 appear collaterally to our story. 
 
 Exactly opposite to Estabel s window, over the nearer 
 entrance to the Round, two elms arched the steps with 
 graceful boughs. They made her think of the gateway 
 at home. As yet, in her heart, Stilhvick was home; 
 Topthorpe was an incident, a peradventure. 
 
 "Now you may dress for dinner," said Aunt Vera. 
 " Put on something nice ; the best you have, probably ; 
 we 11 get more for you soon. Your trunk is below; I 
 will send Archibald up with it in a few minutes. You 
 had better let him put it here, beside the chimney ; and 
 here is a quarter you can hand him." 
 
 She laid a twenty-five-cent piece down upon a little 
 table. 
 
 Estabel looked puzzled for an instant ; then she un 
 derstood. She had seen Aunt Vera do this with porters 
 and servants when she had stayed with her at hotels. 
 But this was not a hotel; it was Aunt Vera s own 
 house ; why did she not do it herself, if it need be done ? 
 She asked her why.
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 57 
 
 "I think you had better. There s no occasion for 
 me. It will show that you know what s proper." 
 
 She meant that Estabel, notwithstanding that peculiar 
 first encounter, should take her position with the ser 
 vants. To Aunt Vera s understanding of things, posi 
 tion was always to be taken with money, from a quar 
 ter s worth upward. 
 
 Estabel took up the coin, and put it back into her 
 aunt s hand. 
 
 "I have some money," she said, "and I d rather 
 really do it, myself." 
 
 Aunt Vera was not offended, but rather pleased. 
 Here was the instinct of a lady, which something in 
 her, apart from money, perceived, respected. 
 
 "That s very nice of you, my dear," she said kindly. 
 "Only I mean to keep you in small pocket money, so 
 we might as well begin. You may not have exactly the 
 right bit. If you want help with your hair or any 
 thing, ring the bell, and Sarah will come." With 
 that, she laid the quarter down again, and went away. 
 
 Estabel could not begin to dress till Archibald and 
 the trunk had come, and the former gone. She took out 
 her little knitted purse, and emptied some silver into 
 her hand. There were a few dimes, half dimes, a half 
 dollar, and a whole one. She selected the half dollar. 
 "I ll give him that," she said to herself, "so that it 
 shall be as much from me as her. Then for a while 
 I 11 let him bring me things for nothing. I guess he 11 
 understand." Which was again the instinct of the in 
 experienced. 
 
 She slid her aunt s contribution out of sight behind 
 a book, went over to a window and sat down, looking 
 out again at the rough square, and the two elms over 
 the stone steps. 
 
 " I shall make believe it is the country, " she medi 
 tated. "It would be a nice place to go and sit with 
 a book."
 
 58 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 She had already turned her make-beliefs the other 
 end round. 
 
 Archibald came with the trunk not a Saratoga 
 upon his shoulder. 
 
 "Set it here, please, Archibald. Thank you very 
 much." And the half dollar, neither exactly knew 
 how, which was precisely as it ought to have been, was 
 slipped into his hand. 
 
 "Thank you, miss, I m sure. I hope you 11 excuse 
 my blundering at the door. " 
 
 Estabel laughed. "Oh, you were both very droll, 
 my aunt and you. I don t wonder you didn t either 
 of you understand. Miss Charlock likes to mystify 
 people sometimes. You thought her name was 
 Chooty-choo ! Oh, what fun ! " And her laugh rang 
 full out, so that the stately Archibald ventured upon a 
 smile. 
 
 "There s no mistake about you, miss. And if 
 there s anything I can do for you of any sort, you ve 
 only just to say it." 
 
 He bowed to her from the doorway with his hand 
 lifted to his forehead, and was gone. Estabel felt more 
 like a princess in a play than ever. "I dreamt that 
 I dwe-elt in ma-arble halls, " she sang as she 
 unhooked her gray debeige dress. 
 
 She had seen and listened to the "Bohemian Girl " 
 three winters ago, when she had been with Aunt Vera 
 at the Trepeake House, and the opera company was at 
 the theatre right opposite. "Oh, what fun, to be 
 the Bohemian Girl ! " she exclaimed, letting down her 
 ash-blond hair out of its tight braid. 
 
 She laid out the fawn-colored chally, with its green 
 and crimson sprays. She chose out of a little box of 
 ribbons which Aunt Esther had supplied to her from the 
 shop, what joy to have, for once, all fresh ones ! 
 a fine length of crimson satin ; it would go so well with 
 the little red flowers upon the dress. And indeed it
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 59 
 
 contrasted well also with the soft, pale color of her hair. 
 She drew this away regretfully from her face, a full 
 light mass of shining strands crisped by the hraiding, 
 and falling like a shower of spun glass threads about 
 her throat and shoulders. "If it only were the fashion 
 to wear it hanging! " she said. But that fashion had 
 not come round yet, and she gathered it into its accus 
 tomed relentless tidiness. 
 
 She had to ring for Sarah to fasten her dress behind. 
 
 " Will you please ? " she said gently, for she was un 
 used to ordering; and so unuse met unwittingly the ex 
 treme of highest habit. "She s a natural lady, any 
 how, " said handmaiden Sarah to herself. 
 
 "Is my hair nice behind, Sarah? " 
 
 "Very nice indeed, miss; only if you would let 
 me there ! " And she had loosened while speaking 
 the locks that had been brushed back stiffly from the 
 temples, and let them drop a little across the ear-tips. 
 "That looks more easy," she remarked. And then 
 she pulled the loopings of the braid each way, until it 
 was shortened and broadened to some pliancy and full 
 ness. "It isn t quite so much like a stick of candy," 
 Sarah said. 
 
 "You ve got pretty hair," she added, to soften the 
 satire of comparison. 
 
 "Why, Sarah! I don t think so at all! " cried Es- 
 tabel in the most honest surprise. "It s only pretty 
 when it s let out, and all anyhow." 
 
 "That s the way some folks is pretty. It don t do 
 to tie up hair or people too tight, and all alike. 
 If you can be kind of car less, an not too much, 
 that s the idear ain t it? " 
 
 "It s a very nice idea, I think." Estabel carefully 
 placed between her vowels the comma for which Sarah 
 had substituted the lingual consonant. Perhaps the 
 latter noticed this, and it suggested what came next. 
 
 "Would you mind, Miss Estabel, spelling my name 
 S-a-r-a? "
 
 60 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Why, what need shall I have to spell it at all ? " 
 
 "Oh, only in your mind. It might sound the same, 
 but twould be a comfort to know you knew, and took 
 that view of it. I can t ever bear names that have 
 aitches put on at the ends ; Sara/i, Hanna/i, RebekaA, 
 SusannaA." She made the "a" very distinctly, "as 
 in father. " 
 
 "Now I think of it," said Estabel, "they aren t 
 spoken alike. There s a picture at Henslee Place of 
 a Madam Sara ; and they always say it short, both 
 a s just alike, Sarra; that s the sound of it. 
 Shall I call you so ? " 
 
 "I guess that wouldn t fit on, now," she answered; 
 "only, if you like, just between ourselves. I suppose 
 other folks must go on pronouncing it wrong. But 
 that s only because they don t know, and we do," she 
 added, with a return of cheerfulness. "Do you suppose 
 they called Lady Sara Roos, in Thaddeus of Warsaw, 
 Sarra ? She was a horrid woman ; behaved like 
 sixty ; but it was a lovely, proud-sounding, innocent 
 way her name was spelt, if she d only conducted herself 
 accordingly." 
 
 Estabel found a comical sympathy in Sarah s fancies. 
 She would like to please her if she could. 
 
 "I don t see why I could n t set the fashion of saying 
 it short," she responded. And then, bethinking herself 
 of Genesis, "There s another way, besides," she said. 
 "Abraham s wife was Sarai, you know; S-a-r-a-i." 
 
 "And a pretty thing she was, too, with her tricks 
 and her tantrums ; piling Hagar and the boy out into 
 the old sandy desert! I don t want any of her. I 
 don t think overmuch of Abraham, neither. He might 
 have been respectable, for the times, but he lied, over 
 and over again ; and he wanted to kill his son. I like 
 Thaddeus of Warsaw better." 
 
 "So did Lady Sara Roos." 
 
 "Well, there might be good Sarras; but Say-ray is 
 dreadful."
 
 FROM STILLWICK TO MOUNT STREET. 61 
 
 "Sara! Isn t it almost dinner time? Mustn t I go 
 down ? " She treated the syllables gently ; it was just 
 a light touch of changed accentuation. Sarah was de 
 lighted. 
 
 "Yes, miss. And good luck go with you. You 
 look real sweet." 
 
 Estabel had at least won to herself two loyal retain 
 ers, in this her first day in marble halls.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 LETTERS. 
 
 MBS. CLYMEB TO MISS CHAKLOCK. 
 
 DEAR ESTHER, I promised, I believe, when we 
 agreed that there had better be no visiting for a while, 
 to write you word now and then in regard to Estabel. 
 Of course, until she begins to go to school, and make 
 acquaintance, and go about a little more, there is not 
 much to say. But at least I have nothing of great 
 consequence to complain of, there being no fences here 
 to climb, and no brooks to jump into, unless she tried 
 the spiked iron of the mall, or the River Shawnie, 
 which at the foot of our street is pretty near a mile 
 across. She has a genius for invention, however, and 
 there is never any knowing what may come of it. It 
 seems a hard thing for her to understand that the city 
 is anything but, as she says, "the country covered up." 
 Mr. Clymer was greatly amused at her definition, and 
 Ulick North, who was here to tea, said it pretty much 
 summed up the whole relation between civilization and 
 barbarism. He says a good many clever things, but I 
 don t know always exactly what he means. 
 
 Well, Estabel managed, the very first morning she 
 was here, to find a place where she thought, I suppose, 
 the country cropped out. Where do you guess she took 
 herself, with a book and her garden hat, but to the gate 
 of the Round, and sat down, as calm as you please, on 
 the stone steps under the elms, just as if she were in 
 your front yard in Stillwick! I saw her through the
 
 LETTERS. 63 
 
 blinds, and all our side of Mount Street might have 
 done the same. Just think of it! And the gentlemen 
 beginning to come out of their front doors to go down 
 town! I was at my wits ends; for it wouldn t do to 
 call to her, and I did n t want to send, and fetch her 
 straight across, to show everybody where the goose had 
 come from. But Sarah Sullivant saw her, too, and she 
 saved the situation this time. She s no fool. She 
 went out the back gate, and down Filbert Street into 
 Beech, and so around up Mount, and took her back the 
 same way. For a mercy, the clotheslines were out, 
 and the sheets hung, so the retreat was under cover. 
 
 I rang for Sarah, and gave her a dollar. She said 
 she didn t want it, but I told her I would rather have 
 given fifty than to have had it noticed. "What will 
 the child do next?" I said. "Something bright an 
 innersunt, I guess, whatever it is," said Sarah. "She s 
 as simple-minded as the Babes in the Wood, or as 
 Lady Godyvy, if it s proper to mention her. There d 
 be no need to be ashamed if folks was only enough like 
 her to understand." I can see that Sarah is all ready 
 to side and maybe hide for her. I told her to 
 watch out, and keep her from doing anything wild and 
 dreadful, if she could. She said, yes ; but she guessed 
 Miss Estybel was smart enough to go alone, and find 
 her way, too, without much hindering, nor yet showing. 
 She d got the lady in her, and that was the main thing. 
 So it is, but there are manners and customs, and the 
 girl is awfully independent. 
 
 When I told her what a queer thing she had done : 
 she just opened her eyes at me. "Why, what ar 
 things for, then, if they aren t to take comfort in?" 
 she wanted to know. I said that people in the city had 
 to take comfort in their houses; that trees and grass 
 were to look at, out of window, or walking along ; little 
 children, with nurses to take care of them, might play 
 in the squares ; but to go and sit there, a great,
 
 64 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 grown girl, with a book! "Well," says she, with a 
 long, hard breath, as if it was the last she expected to 
 draw, "I ve heard of being as big as all outdoors; but 
 it seems when you re fifteen years old, and in the city, 
 you re bigger. I think it s terrible to outgrow the 
 whole world, and have to be crowded into a crack be 
 tween brick walls. I know now how that genie felt in 
 the bottle. I don t wonder he stretched sky-high when 
 he was let out ! " 
 
 She was n t the least bit impertinent nor out of 
 humor; she simply couldn t see. 
 
 Esther Charlock, it isn t so much her manners we ve 
 got to deal with; it s the very make and being of her. 
 You see that before she will give in to anything, be 
 cause it s customary, she wants to go clear to the bottom 
 of the custom, and settle the why and what for. You ve 
 got to explain the very foundation ; to dig up the coun 
 try from under the town. She wants to know "why 
 people build their houses right up against each other, 
 if they don t want to be really neighborly." "They 
 have to," I told her. "Land is dear in the city." 
 "What makes it? " "Why, so many people want to 
 live here." "What for? " "Why, for convenience; 
 to buy things, and to get things done ; and for business, 
 and amusement, and improvement, and society. Every 
 thing is in the city." "But everybody doesn t have 
 everything; and it doesn t look very sociable to me, 
 when people can t speak to you until they ve known 
 you always. How do they begin?" So there she 
 was, back into the creation. I only told her she would 
 have to wait and see ; that it was necessary to be par 
 ticular, to keep society nice, where there was such a 
 mixture. And then she wanted to know why they did n t 
 go out of it all, where there was plenty of room to be 
 nice and separate. What did they want of a mixture, 
 if they could n t mix ? It was just a round and round ; 
 and when I asked her how they could have theatres
 
 LETTERS. 65 
 
 and pictures and music and lectures without the city 
 to get together in, she began right over. "But they 
 aren t together, except in a crowd; and I don t be 
 lieve they would need the theatres so much, if they 
 could see into each other s lives a little more, didn t 
 keep all the window curtains down ; and as to the pic 
 tures and music, they might have a whole world full of 
 what those were made from, if they would only get out 
 a little way, and look and listen. " So I said again, 
 "You ll only have to live and learn. I thought you 
 were pleased to come to the city." "So I was," said 
 she; "only to doesn t seem to be into. If I can find 
 the into of it, I shall like it well enough." I suppose 
 she would like to have the fronts of the houses all roll 
 up, like drop scenes, and see the whole play in every 
 one. When her own play begins, it will be different. 
 The bell has n t rung yet; she s sitting outside of all 
 that, too, with only the green curtain to look at. 
 
 I am getting her ready for school. That is, I m 
 getting new best dresses for her ; I mean she shall take 
 her old best for every day. I want her to appear well 
 at the start, there s so much in first impressions. 
 
 I 11 put in a pattern of her new silk. Everything is 
 figured, now. But this is double-faced, and will turn. 
 Yours affectionately, 
 
 VEBA CLYMEB. 
 
 ESTABEL TO AUNT ESTHER. 
 
 DEAR AUNT ETTIE, Aunt Vera asked me if I 
 wanted to send any message, and I told her no. If 
 it s going to be writing for a while, instead of seeing, 
 some of the writing is going to be mine. And I wish 
 you d take my letter down into the garden, among the 
 beans, and read it there if it s a pleasant day when 
 you get it. Oh, don t I wish I could be let out! I in 
 not unhappy, either. Aunt Vera is good, and every-
 
 66 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 thing is so beautiful here that I can t help feeling 
 grand, and liking it: only there isn t any real bigness 
 to it ; it stops right in the tilings, as if they were stones 
 in a wall. What a mercy it is that there s a sky over 
 the world, and a sea rolling round it, and birds flying, 
 and fish swimming, somewhere. I do so wish I could 
 be in the fly, and in the swim. [Estabel did not know 
 in the least that she was pre-inventing modern slang.] 
 I suppose it will be better when I go to school, and 
 that will be in three weeks now. 
 
 How funny it is to think that there are people in all 
 these houses, built right up against each other, and 
 looking across to each other s doors and windows; and 
 that they go in and out, with latchkeys, or ringing a 
 bell, and then the door shuts fast, and you see nothing 
 more of them and never know what they are about, or 
 what they care for. And the minute the lamps are 
 lighted, the curtains are pulled down, and nobody ever 
 sits in the windows, hardly. I think it is like the Cata 
 combs ! But then you have a lot of room for guessing, 
 and what you guess about people is very likely more in 
 teresting than what you ever come to know. At any 
 rate, it s all the fun there is in it. The comfort is, it 
 can t be so at school. 
 
 It seems to me the people really do get brickwall-y, 
 living this way. Aunt Vera took me with her one 
 afternoon to pay a call just two doors down the street. 
 There is a girl who lives there, just about my age. 
 I ve seen her on the balustrade, the next but one to 
 ours. You can go on the balustrade, w r hen you can t 
 stay inside any longer, because it is at the back of the 
 house. Though I don t see exactly what makes the 
 difference, for there are yards and windows all around. 
 It is only, I suppose, that there is no street, where 
 people are walking past. There are grapevines, too, 
 about our balustrade, and w r oodbines about hers, so we 
 are shaded in, and can only just look over. I called
 
 LETTERS. 67 
 
 out to that girl one day, but I didn t dare speak quite 
 loud enough, and she did n t answer, nor look round, so 
 I concluded she didn t hear. Or perhaps that she 
 thought her mother called her, for in a minute more 
 she went hack into the room. She is very pretty, and 
 I thought I should like to know her. How do you 
 begin to know people in a new place ? I don t think 
 she has lived there long, either ; for Aunt Vera says 
 the houses in this block are all new, and that they had 
 come into the street since she did, and so it was her 
 place to call. 
 
 Well, we went ; and Aunt Vera sent up her card, 
 as you wouldn t, you know, the day we came here! 
 Mrs. Chilstone came down in a few minutes, with her 
 things on ; she was just going out, she said, but she was 
 polite enough just to light down on a chair, you could 
 see she didn t really settle into it, but seemed to sit on 
 tiptoe, and she and Aunt Vera said a few things 
 while Mrs. Chilstone was putting on her gloves, about 
 the warm, pleasant weather, and the nice breeze we 
 had here from the river, and the way the Round was 
 likely to be built up, and Aunt Vera hoped she would 
 come and bring her daughter to see me. "Isn t Miss 
 Chilstone at home ? " she asked right out ; and I thought 
 Mrs. Chilstone looked a little odd and stiff, and she 
 just said Yes, Corinna was at home, but she was expect 
 ing her music teacher ; and with that she finished but 
 toning her glove, and almost got up, as if she were the 
 visitor, and her call was over. So Aunt Vera and I 
 came away ; and it was half an hour after that when I 
 saw Mrs. Chilstone walk up the street. 
 
 I am telling you all this because it seems so queer, 
 and makes the city such a puzzling place; and I can t 
 help hoping that if the kingdom of heaven is in a city, 
 it won t be so shut up, and I don t believe it will, be 
 cause the walls of it are clear precious stones that the 
 light shines through, and the gates are never shut by
 
 68 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 day, and there isn t any night. I guess that s just 
 what it means, but I shouldn t have known it, if it 
 had n t been for finding this so different. 
 
 I have almost done ; only the rest, so far, about that 
 girl, Corinna Chilstone, is that I met her right out here 
 on the sidewalk, yesterday morning, and as we had 
 been to see her, I thought I might show I remembered 
 her, and would like to speak. So I smiled, and said, 
 " Good morning ; " and what do you think ? She just 
 said, with her lips nipped together so that I don t know 
 how the words got out at all, except that they were so 
 short and sharp, "My mother doesn t allow me to 
 speak with strange girls on the street, " and marched 
 right straight along. Wasn t I mad? And don t you 
 think she was horrid ? I shall have to stop here, for if 
 I was to write any more, I m afraid some awful words 
 would get away from me on to the paper. 
 
 So good-by, and don t think I m not having a good 
 time because of these few things, that I feel better 
 about now I have told them. Aunt Vera thinks it was 
 all accidental about the short call, and that Corinna 
 really didn t know me, and I shouldn t have spoken to 
 her without a card or something, I suppose. 
 Your affectionate niece, 
 
 ESTABEL. 
 
 P. S. There are plenty and plenty of beautiful 
 books here, and lots of lovely people in them, so I m 
 not so A r ery lonesome, after all. I never was lonesome 
 till I came where there are so many people. I am 
 reading " Lalla Rookh, " and it has pictures in it, and is 
 heavenly. Only I m always so sorry for that poor Peri. 
 
 MISS CHARLOCK TO MRS. CLYMER. 
 
 DEAR SISTER-IX-LAW-IN-LAW, I see just what 
 puzzles you about Estabel, and you 11 have to do as 
 you told her, wait and see. I ve been waiting and
 
 LETTERS. 69 
 
 seeing this long time, or rather waiting a, long time and 
 just beginning to see. If it will do you any good, I 
 will tell you what little I ve got to in making her out. 
 
 I believe I told you before, in some things she s just 
 a baby, and again in others she might have been born 
 grown up. Outside, she s bran new; inside, I most 
 think sometimes she s old as the hills. Perhaps we all 
 are, if we only get far enough into ourselves to find out. 
 
 AVhat I mean is, that in what concerns manners and 
 things, she s new; she isn t one of the sort that grows 
 in the bark, but in the pith. She has n t got the touch 
 with things that folks call tact. That s only the skin 
 sense, anyhow; but it s all some folks ever have, so 
 they make much of it. There s more to Estabel. 
 She s got flesh and heart, and that s what she 11 live 
 in and understand by, when she comes to it and has her 
 chance. That s only the outside of the inside, too; 
 the real, deep inside is what the Lord only knows and 
 gets at. It s the place where He s creating us. The 
 flesh and the heart work out from it, and show what 
 He is about with us. Nobody would be anybody with 
 out them, and so we shall always have them somehow, 
 though we shall shed our skins when the time comes 
 (Jobxix. 26; Ps. ii. 26). 
 
 [Miss Charlock seldom quoted Scripture verbally, but 
 she knew what she had found concerned her to know, 
 and had chapter and verse for it, for her own use or 
 the rinding of others.] 
 
 One thing you 11 have to remember, that the growing 
 flesh of a little child is tender, and won t bear bruising. 
 If it once gets sore and festered, there s no knowing 
 what mischief, not to say perhaps corruption, might 
 take hold. There s more than one way to spoil a child. 
 Healthy flesh don t gangrene; happy hearts don t get 
 out of kilter. Keep her bright and sweet and healthy, 
 whatever you do. If you find you can t, send her back 
 to Still wick. She 11 grow slower here, maybe, but the
 
 70 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 best things don t grow in a hurry, nor in too rich earth; 
 and being a human creature, she s bound to grow to 
 something. If it wasn t that you ve a perfect right to 
 your try with her, I should have elected to keep her 
 myself. 
 
 I am much obliged to you for writing, and I hope 
 you 11 write often. When you think best, I shall be 
 glad to see you and Estabel. I won t put in any mes 
 sage for her, as I in going to write to her separately. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 ESTHER CHARLOCK. 
 
 Miss Charlock announced her purpose without ques 
 tion. She would not insist upon visits ; she thought, 
 herself, they had as well not be yet ; but she meant to 
 keep some unbroken link with the child. This was 
 what she wrote : 
 
 DEAR ESTABEL, I don t know exactly what to say 
 to you in answer to all you told me in your letter. I 
 am glad you aren t homesick, and I don t believe you 
 will be. There s too much for you to feel interested 
 in finding out about, even the things that are partially 
 unpleasant. It seems to m e that it s just here; you re 
 in a new outside, and outsides are different ; but the 
 insides, I guess, are pretty much all alike everywhere, 
 because it s all one and the same world, and the same 
 human beings in it. When you get used to the ways, 
 you 11 see through to what they stand for, and that s 
 where you 11 have a chance to choose. It s like learn 
 ing a new language. I never did, but I know. The 
 words are queer, till you get the sense of them, and 
 then you see they mean the same thing as your own. 
 Butter s butter, whether you have to ask for it in 
 French or Dutch or English. I don t know about 
 Hottentot or Esquimaux. Probably there there might 
 be a difference in the butter.
 
 LETTERS. 71 
 
 But don t set your face like a flint against the ways, 
 just because they are ways. There must be ways and 
 manners. They re what folks understand each other 
 by. We should be brickwall-y, sure enough, without 
 them. And don t be in a hurry to run after people, 
 nor to run away from them. Wait and see. And do 
 mend your stockings, and not lose your pocket handker 
 chiefs, nor wear your gloves with rips in them. 
 
 That s all at present; with kind love, from 
 
 AUNT ESTHER. 
 
 P. S. Mind and smooth out your bonnet strings, 
 and don t tie them in ropes.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 
 
 MR. SATTERWOOD S schoolroom was a large parlor in 
 an old-fashioned house that he had hired in an old-fash 
 ionable locality. It was a corner room, and looked out, 
 with four windows, on the street, and into a courtyard 
 behind. Back of the courtyard ran a broken ascent, 
 partly green and partly gravel, around whose base new 
 building was going on. This open ground was free to 
 the scholars as playground. 
 
 Two long tables extended through the room, from 
 before Mr. Satterwood s desk and the recitation benches, 
 to the street windows. These tables were covered with 
 green cloth, and surrounded by flag-bottomed chairs, in 
 which the pupils sat as close together as reasonable el 
 bow room allowed. Sometimes, of course, unreasonable 
 elbow room was taken, and cause for dispute or appeal 
 arose, as will always happen in an elbow-crowding com 
 munity. 
 
 Mr. Satterwood had come from England, with high 
 credentials arul introductions. Topthorpe had taken 
 him up, and the best families were sending their daugh 
 ters to him. This parlor arrangement, rather than a 
 bare schoolroom with common, hard desks, seemed a 
 particularly private and happy one to the Topthorpe 
 ladies who were here represented. It was the more of 
 an ordeal to a stranger like Estabel, coming in alone, to 
 face the cold inquisitiveness that glanced up at her, or 
 the colder indifference that never turned or lifted itself 
 from around those elliptic lines of select assemblage.
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 73 
 
 A whispered word had preceded her. It came from 
 Corinna Chilstone, who had entered at the street door 
 at the same moment with Mrs. Clymer and Estabel. 
 
 "She arrived in a barouche, with two horses." 
 
 "How silly! " 
 
 "So vulgar! " 
 
 "The barouche is shiny new, and so are the people. 
 They live in our street, but mamma says she is sure she 
 doesn t know where they belong." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had made another of her mistakes. She 
 had chosen this morning to drive to Roystonport, to 
 visit a friend, and on her way had brought Estabel 
 round in state, to make a "first impression." The im 
 pression was made, and Estabel had an uncomfortable 
 five minutes while Mr. Satterwood paused below to 
 speak with Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 When he came upstairs, he called the school imme 
 diately to order, and assigned a seat to the newcomer. 
 She found herself between two girls who drew apart to 
 make room for her, whether politely or not was not 
 precisely evident. One of the two looked pleasant, but 
 made no sign. The other sent a glance, as if for a cue, 
 across to Corinna Chilstone, who was directly opposite 
 with hard, avoiding face, and who sent a look, like a 
 grazing shot, carefully past Estabel, with a significant 
 half smile. That smile, and the previous whispered 
 word, were like the straw and the pebble which deter 
 mined at the outset the ti end of channel for the young 
 human spirit that had its way to wend in a new strange 
 countryside. 
 
 Another thing had been foolishly done, to add a 
 ready prejudice. The "veriest best " dress was chosen 
 for Estabel s first school wear; a "chine , " or clouded, 
 silk, lilac and gray, with lace at the neck and sleeves, 
 and a ribbon sash. There was nothing showy about it, 
 a modest little best dress enough, but out of place 
 and conspicuous among the ginghams and French prints,
 
 74 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 with which were worn the schoolgirl finish only of white 
 linen cuffs and collars, and perhaps a black silk apron. 
 
 "It s Wednesday; she s all ready for dancing 
 school, " whispered one girl at recess, quite within her 
 hearing. It was the girl who had got the cue of the 
 smile from Corinna Chilstone. 
 
 "That s why she had to come in her carriage," re 
 turned a second, as the two, following their leader, 
 passed Estabel through the garden gate, beyond which 
 nobody invited her. 
 
 " Dancing school ! Carriage ! " she heard Miss Chil 
 stone say over her shoulder, with a little sound too 
 scornful for a laugh. "Everything s getting so disgust 
 ingly common. Do you believe Scalchi will take her ? " 
 
 "Mr. Satterwood has. Did you notice, there s a 
 whole new class, now, of common things ? " 
 
 The latter sentences had been beyond hearing, but 
 the deriding titter came back. 
 
 Now a "Philosophy of Common Things " was an in 
 troductory text-book for the study of Physics. Four or 
 five new scholars, among whom was Estabel, had been 
 formed into a class for a morning lesson in it. 
 
 The witticism circulated. There was suppressed 
 mirth when the abbreviated title was given in the call 
 for recitation. Afterward, Mr. Satterwood quietly 
 changed the word of summons. "Fourth Class in Phi 
 losophy " it became. And then, in the movement that 
 followed, there would be a smile and a rustle around 
 the second table, and a pantomimic "Common things, 
 common things, " be passed from lip to lip. 
 
 A great American prima donna once told the writer 
 of this story that a certain European people was the 
 most cruel of all audiences to play to. "They have 
 always treated me well, " she said ; " but I would 
 rather make an engagement in any city in the world 
 than . They will pick up some little flaw of per 
 formance, or trick of personality, and make an insult
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 75 
 
 of it. I once played in with a fine tenor. His 
 
 voice and style were perfect ; wonderful for sweetness 
 and control. And he was a gentleman ; sensitive, too, 
 as all musical souls are. It happened that he had a 
 slight nasal utterance, in certain combinations of conso 
 nants ; he could not pronounce Linda clearly ; the 
 first syllable was, as we say, through the nose. That 
 poor man couldn t come on the stage in that opera, but 
 the whole house would be watching, and then N-l-nda, 
 N-l-nda, N-l-nda, would run in a little low, mean 
 mockery all through the auditorium and galleries, con 
 fusing his beautiful notes, and sometimes silencing him. 
 It was a persecution; it forced the breaking of his en 
 gagement, and was the ruin of his whole year s work." 
 
 A school of girls, or a few girls in a school, for 
 they are but few, as they aspire to be, may be cruel 
 as Turk, or Cossack, or Spaniard, or wild, war-painted 
 Apache Indian. And in those days there was a certain 
 crude fashion among the few, always to be under 
 stood in qualification of being openly cruel. Quiz 
 zing and snubbing were done without disguise, as we 
 read in last-century novels of their being done in aristo 
 cratic London. Everybody, now, of course, is a great 
 deal too well-bred. If there is a sting, it is politely 
 covered; if there is a cold shoulder, it is but turned 
 inwardly, to an inward apprehension. "Tempora mu- 
 tantur ; " let us hope that the rest of the old Latin pro 
 verb is surely, if but gradually, coming to be the setting 
 forth of essential truth. 
 
 Such small barbarisms seem scarcely worth remember 
 ing or recounting; but nothing is inconsiderable which 
 gives bias to feeling and character; and these early ex 
 periences of Estabel s girlhood shaped very much her 
 estimates of life, and were initial to much for her in its 
 more important issues. In this intricacy of cause and 
 effect and influence which by great and little determines 
 our development, who shall say what is most vital and 
 far reaching ?
 
 76 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel wanted friends. She wanted to have a good 
 time. For that she had wished to be among girls. 
 Here were girls ; hut where were the friends ? where 
 was the good time? 
 
 It is a strange thing, but practically true, that a 
 handful of persons, old or young, arrogating to them 
 selves privilege, can throw a whole community out of 
 satisfying social sympathy. It is also a sure axiom that 
 the masses do not know their own power. If they did, 
 they could rise and assert themselves in their turn, 
 not by outbreak, not by insult for insult, but by qui 
 etly, and without reference to any, assuming for them 
 selves ; evolving their own possibilities, on their own 
 open lines ; mutually gravitating into a gentle order, 
 and by as natural organization as planets group them 
 selves in systems. No system fills the whole firmament ; 
 there is not one circle of heavenly bodies and all the 
 rest chaos. Nobody, with a soul and a purpose, need 
 be in chaos. 
 
 Whether the same independence might declare itself 
 in the perplexing involvements of tangible, material in 
 terests, is a question that may not be solvable as yet by 
 the enunciation of any inclusive principle of power in 
 human action ; but that morally and socially there may 
 be a grand freedom and universality, an absolute ignor 
 ing and consequent demolition of cobweb lines of de 
 marcation and hindrance, is as sure as that every human 
 being is complete in individual potentials, and that there 
 is room and relation for every one in the wide unity of 
 the kingdom of God. 
 
 Life, at the best, is severe with us. It seizes upon 
 us unawares. It demands of us what we have not yet 
 attained. We never begin it fully equipped for the 
 fight. We are plunged into the midst of choices before 
 we have the heavenly or the earthly wisdom to compre 
 hend or discriminate. Things determine themselves 
 unfairly. If this is most eminently and disastrously
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 77 
 
 true where the little new human soul falls at its birth 
 among the baser " thieves " of an open abuse and depravity, 
 the fact confronts us also in a thousand subtle ways in 
 finer circumstance. Frank, unwary impulses are trapped 
 into mistakes, natural desires are hindered by their own 
 simplicity, hope is thwarted in its advance by the very 
 eagerness which anticipates a sagacious judgment and 
 displaces a calm patience. 
 
 There are those who are born hedged in from coarse 
 perils, who would be no stronger against them than the 
 helplessness which falls under the compulsion or entice 
 ment of crime. There are those, as certainly, who are 
 put from the start into assured, defended social station, 
 where a little folly will be condoned, a passing blunder 
 smoothed over, and no prestige or consideration lost ; 
 and who owe to this immunity a success which might 
 otherwise have been mortification and failure. "One 
 of us " cannot easily forfeit. 
 
 But, ah, for the young thing whose every little incau- 
 tiousness is scanned, every inadvertence condemned, be 
 cause of its fresh proof that of such is not, and cannot 
 be, the kingdom of the elite ! Truly, the little children 
 are not all suffered to come and receive the benediction. 
 
 Estabel s experience at school made her at once self- 
 distrustful and resentfully assertive. It made her at 
 once too proud to acknowledge snub, and too sensitive 
 to help caring for that which she endeavored to despise. 
 She was full of contradictions. She was sometimes 
 rude in reprisal, and again too amiable in conciliation. 
 Some things she haughtily kept to herself which might 
 have stood her in advantage ; some others she let appear 
 which were trivial and pretentious these, because they 
 seemed to her the things continually judged by, fitted 
 to a trivial and pretentious apprehension. 
 
 "Don t tell anybody you re my any sort of a 
 cousin, " she said to Harry Henslee at one of Signor 
 Scalchi s "Saturday evenings." "Let them think you
 
 78 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 are just polite because you happened to know me a little 
 at Stillwick." 
 
 For all that, the fact that Harry Henslee danced with 
 her had its effect. He took her without hesitation into 
 one of the top sets of the quadrille, where by tacit law 
 nobody out of a certain charmed young circle presumed 
 upon a place. 
 
 "Where did you ever know her? " asked Rose Alden, 
 his next partner. 
 
 "At my grandfather s, Colonel Henslee s, in Still- 
 wick," was the reply. "We are old playmates." 
 
 And presently, in the pause between the dances, Rose 
 Alden, finding herself next to Estabel in the pretty side 
 line of young girls, remarked affably to her that Scalchi 
 had given them lovely music to-night, two extra 
 pieces ; and she hoped a waltz cotillon was coming next. 
 It was in the early dawn of the "german." 
 
 Estabel flushed up with simple pleasure. She had 
 been so used to standing silent, or just slipping to Aunt 
 Vera s side upon one of the chaperons sofas. Rose 
 Alden was not of the every-day Satterwood constituency ; 
 Estabel only met her here ; she attended some other 
 school, and was truly a girl as little tainted as might 
 be by the miasma of her social sphere. Upon really 
 high ground, the miasma does not so easily creep. Her 
 little overture was quite uncompelled, and so the more 
 touchingly gracious. Whether it would have occurred 
 to her to make it but for that word of Harry Henslee s, 
 is perhaps a needless question. So much of the best that 
 is done depends upon a happening. To Estabel Charlock 
 the act was that of a sweet little Samaritan, right out 
 of a gospel parable. She would not presume upon such 
 gentlehood. She moved away a little, lest she should 
 seem to expect more. 
 
 Estabel s old way of dreaming followed her in her 
 new world. To really know girls like Rose Alden ; 
 to run with them in and out of their houses, houses
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 79 
 
 whose entrances she passed with a kind of wonder what 
 it would be to pass freely in; to have it felt no intru 
 sion to greet them heartily, to turn and walk with them, 
 to make little afternoon plans with them as schoolmates 
 do with each other ; these things, which would simply 
 mean a nearness to that which seemed beautiful and 
 choice, were the unreached mirage that at once stimu 
 lated and mocked her realities. Her afternoons, when 
 she did not drive out with her Aunt Vera, were for the 
 most part spent solitarily enough, except for the com 
 panionship of books, and the innocent translation of the 
 life in them to the fine, empty stage scene of her own 
 surroundings. More and more she adored the possible 
 but far-off poetry of existence ; more and more she 
 longed to attach to herself some little portion of its 
 beauty ; to move, in some simple measure, to its rare, 
 sweet rhyme and cadence. In these days she had fre 
 quent deep consultations with her own mirrored reflec 
 tion. " If I were only pretty very pretty I be 
 lieve I could bear almost anything! " she would think. 
 Yes; whatever befell, she would then be the lovely 
 heroine in a real story ; the passing details would hardly 
 matter; a story, with a lovely heroine in it, is so cer 
 tain somehow to come out right. 
 
 She did not tell her disappointments to her Aunt 
 Vera. She knew what that lady expected of her, and 
 it was a trouble to her, for that reason, not to accom 
 plish it. And Aunt Vera was in a hurry. 
 
 "Why don t you ask the Arkleys here? " she would 
 demand of Estabel. 
 
 "I don t know them well enough." 
 
 "You see them every day. Why don t you know 
 them well enough ? " 
 
 "I don t think they care to have me." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 "Aunt Vera, it is you, now, that make an auger of 
 your why, as you tell me I do, " the girl answered,
 
 80 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 laughing; and would not be interrogated any more. 
 "Let me open those wools, and hold them for you to 
 wind. " she said. 
 
 And Aunt Vera had reached near enough to her point 
 not to care to drive her auger any deeper. 
 
 Estabel had a friend in the house, however, with 
 whom she was more confidential. Sarah or Sara 
 Sullivant was a sharp woman ; not only sharp, but 
 sympathetic where she cared. And from the begin 
 ning she had cared for this girl, bright and sweet and 
 natural, not made in the Topthorpe mould, and plainly 
 destined for many a pinch and rasp before she could be 
 fitted into it. 
 
 It was to Sara that Estabel told her woe when she 
 came home one day in the shame and rage of an unfair 
 "deportment " mark. 
 
 "It was all that horrid Corinna Chilstone, " she said. 
 "She sat next me in the class, and turned her back to 
 me almost square round ; and so I just turned the 
 same way and put my slate up against her shoulders 
 we were doing dictation. Mr. Satterwood was at the 
 other end, looking at a girl s die; and I would have 
 taken it away directly, for I knew she would have to 
 come back into position before he got near ; but she gave 
 such a mad shrug, and made it fall bang upon the 
 floor, broken all to pieces. Mr. Satterwood does hate 
 a noise, and he came right down upon us ; and there she 
 was, as calm as a clock and as innocent as a pussy cat, 
 sitting as if she had n t moved fora week, and just look 
 ing up with her eyes rounded big in that surprised way 
 at girls that don t know how while I was picking up 
 the shatters. Miss Charlock, how happened that ? 
 said he. I got provoked, said I, which was the sol 
 emn truth, and I let it go so. And she never said boo, 
 but let him think I smashed it down in a temper; and 
 he gave me a provisional 2. That girl is too hateful to 
 endure ! "
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 81 
 
 "What is a provisional 2 ? " asked Sara. 
 
 "It s a mark that can be redeemed by the average 
 of marks for the month." 
 
 "H m! That s a good gospel idea," said Sara. "I 
 guess he mistrusted more n you told him. A school 
 master s no business to be a fool." 
 
 "He asked me afterward what I had been provoked 
 about, and I said I would rather not tell." 
 
 "Don t you worry. You ll everige all right, " said 
 Sara. 
 
 "It isn t that so much. Mr. Satterwood is fair. 
 But I can not bear that girl ! " She spoke with 
 long, emphatic dashes between her words. 
 
 "There s one comfort," said Sara Sullivant. "You 
 only have to put up with her ; but she has to put up 
 with the devil ! " 
 
 Estabel stared, but took in at the same moment the 
 fundamental principle of a Christian charity. 
 
 " Well, she does have the worst of it perhaps, " 
 she said, and laughed, which was what Sara Sullivant 
 wanted. 
 
 "I presume likely she is pretty much clear cat," said 
 Sara again. "If I was you I cl let her alone, and see 
 if I couldn t find some butter." 
 
 "Why, Sarra! Cat! Butter! What are you talk 
 ing about ? " 
 
 "I s pose you never heard that story. Well, it s a 
 kind of a country parable an old lady used to tell that 
 I knew at home in State o Maine. An it s jest as 
 true in one place as another the real true of it. 
 Otherways, it don t sound very pleasant." 
 
 "Tell me the parable," demanded Estabel. 
 
 "Yes, I was lay in out to. You see, there was an 
 other old woman so she said that had a churnin 
 to do. And after she d got it all ready and begun, 
 she put a boy at it, an went off on some partickler 
 arrant she had. Well, the boy had an arrant, too,
 
 82 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 something connected with a pocket full of new marbles. 
 So he churned awhile, first with the dasher of the 
 churn, and again with his hand in his pocket among the 
 marbles ; and then he took off the lid of the churn and 
 looked in, and the butter hadn t come. So he concluded 
 to make sure of his own business, and give the cream 
 a rest ; and off he went, without ever putting the lid 
 on; and the cat got in. 
 
 "It took him about half an hour to lose all his mar 
 bles, and then he came back in a hurry, clapped on the 
 lid, and worked away for dear life at the crank, and 
 churned up the cat." 
 
 " How could he ? " Estabel interrupted incredulously. 
 
 " J don t know. That s the parable. I ain t re 
 sponsible, no more n I am for original sin. The cat 
 got churned up; that s the story, and you ve got to 
 take a story as the story-teller tells it, cat an all. The 
 cat got churned up; an the old lady came back, and 
 the boy guessed the butter had come, an a mighty lot 
 of it. Well, it had ; there it was and all the rest 
 of it. When she had cuffed the boy right and left till 
 he was about as mixed up as the critter an the cream, 
 the old lady went to work and emptied out the churn. 
 She was a sensible woman, and a savin one. I can t 
 afford to lose all that butter, any way, says she. So 
 she got three big pans, an set em in a row along 
 the table, an began to sort out three different piles. 
 That s butter, says she ; " and Sara illustrated with 
 her index finger, as she went on, over the three imagi 
 nary pans. " An that s butter-an -cat ; and that s 
 all cat! Now that s just the way it s been with 
 human nachur, ever sence the Old Boy was left with the 
 churn. I s pose likely there 11 be a sortin out some 
 time, an no butter 11 be thrown away ; but what concerns 
 us now is to keep as clear of the cat part as we can. 
 Don t have anything at all to do with that Chilstone girl, 
 nor any of her tribe. Don t get mixed up with em."
 
 SCHOOL EXPERIENCE. 83 
 
 "That s just it," said Estabel. "If I could, I 
 wouldn t. I d be glad to be the one to let alone. 
 I don t want them, in the least; but I don t like to be 
 pushed off. And the nice ones can t be got at, sepa 
 rate. The butter and cat are all mixed up." 
 
 "In this week s churnin , maybe; but there s more 
 to come," said Sara. "If you can t sort out, just 
 wait. And as to being pushed why, it s a poor rule 
 that don t work both ways. I learnt philosophy a little 
 at school, and I know there s two ends to a magnet, 
 and if you turn two wrong ends to each other, they both 
 push away. Just look at it that way; do your own 
 pushin in your own mind, at least t ain t worth 
 any other and have the satisfaction. And don t lose 
 other chances. I know how tis; I haven t lived in 
 Topthorpe twelve years nor yet on this number-three 
 planet for forty without seein things. Folks are all 
 in the same procession. It don t make such a great 
 sight of difference where you hitch on; everybody can t 
 be at the head ; no more could there be any head if 
 there was n t any procession. It is n t the real head 
 that makes any trouble; that s generally away on some 
 where, out of sight. It s the hustling and treading on 
 heels in the ranks. The kind of people that hustle ain t 
 actchally any more important than them they think 
 they re crowdin back. Keep your own place, and 
 keep step with your neighbors; don t try to catch up 
 or get by. March to the music; the band plays for 
 you as much as for anybody." 
 
 "Aunt would n t be satisfied with that, " said Estabel, 
 in her great longing for sympathy telling this plain, 
 kindly woman the whole. "She wants me to catch up. 
 She would like me to be among those that lead off. 
 She s disappointed. And I m un happy! " The 
 last words came with a choke, which she coughed away 
 valiantly, throwing her head up high. 
 
 "The mistake," said Sara Sullivant, "is liable to be
 
 84 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 about who does lead off. T ain t the little ragamuffins 
 who run ahead an holler, any more than t s the ones 
 that tag after at the tail." 
 
 " I shall never tag after, " said Estabel with disdain, 
 her head still in the air. And that was the end. 
 
 But on her pillow that night the proud little head 
 lay passive to sorely persistent thought. 
 
 "I don t want to tag on," she said to herself. "But 
 I want to be wanted ! Oh, if I were only as beautiful 
 as Eleanor Charlock! Why can t great-aunts leave 
 their beauty in their wills for somebody that it would 
 make so happy ! "
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 SOCIAL ICEBERGS. 
 
 THERE is a belt of icebergs in the Northern Ocean. 
 They seem to have it all their own, hard, glittering, 
 outshutting way. It is a terrible endeavor, to come up 
 from the safe, pleasant greenness and warmth of a tem 
 perate zone, and strive, with restless, urgent ambition, 
 to penetrate their fastnesses and abide in their chill. 
 But who does it for an abiding? Beyond the icebergs, 
 it has been believed, is an Open Sea. Men have longed 
 to find it. The icebergs were the things that were in 
 the way, and would be till the true path that should 
 pass by them, untouched by their threat, through some 
 safe, sure channel, should be found. 
 
 Beyond our social icebergs beyond all repulse and 
 chill and desolateness, under the pole star of an eter 
 nal Truth is a possible fair outstretch of calm space 
 for natural human life and human-hearted fellowship. 
 To discover this, perhaps, to find at any rate the 
 great magnetic secret which centres and sways the whole 
 vast order to a sublime unity and movement, is the 
 only sufficient end for which to approach any stern and 
 frozen outworks of an Arctic Circle. It is the hope, 
 hidden and instinctive, of reaching to the beautiful heart 
 and best of things, which moves desire and struggle. 
 That which encrusts and hinders is not coveted for it 
 self. Nobody cares to rest among the floes and gla 
 ciers. We think they barricade from us some noblest 
 knowledge, some supreme experience ; and human aspira 
 tion urges onward always toward the noble and supreme.
 
 86 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Something of this great impulse, all uncomprehended, 
 was behind our little Estabel s restlessness and chagrin. 
 It was behind even Mrs. Clymer s small ambitions, if 
 she could but have understood it in herself, and by such 
 understanding have been freed from their smallness. 
 Except that this was so, and is always so, it would not 
 be worth while to follow for a moment any such exter 
 nal effort, or to consider what so paltrily opposed it. 
 The very paltriness and offense are the mistakes of a 
 selfishness moved by the selfsame longing and demand 
 for the best, and stopping short at its miserable simu 
 lacrum. 
 
 It is not to be supposed that this entire first winter 
 of her school and city life was, after all, an unbroken 
 loneliness and unmitigated disappointment to Estabel. 
 Nothing is quite without exception or mitigation. In 
 deed, there need have been no very bitter disappoint 
 ment, had she not felt that she was continually falling 
 short of what was expected of her; had she been per 
 mitted to follow up freely the easier natural possibilities 
 that offered to her. The severer expectations were al 
 ways interposed, and made so plainly evident. Some 
 things, some beginnings, were so quickly negatived or 
 disfavored ; some others, as to which she had neither 
 option nor control, were so, by comparison, demanded. 
 
 For instance. 
 
 "I should like to have the Goodwins here to tea, 
 Aunt Vera." 
 
 "What Goodwins?" 
 
 "Why, Kitty and Helen. The ones that go to our 
 school and our church, you know. They sit right be 
 hind the Waldons. They live over in Hemlock Street." 
 
 " Do you know who they are, Mr. Clymer ? " 
 
 "I know Goodwin in a way. He s a retired sea 
 captain." 
 
 "Oh! " Mrs. Clymer s "Oh! " was sufficiently sig 
 nificant to Estabel.
 
 SOCIAL ICEBER GS. 87 
 
 "They are very nice girls," she said, with a chival 
 rous brevity as significant in its turn as the dignity of 
 fifteen and the certainty of a true position could make 
 it. 
 
 "That s quite likely; but you know very well, 
 Estabel, that we wish you to be discriminating in your 
 intimacies." 
 
 "So I am. I like the Goodwins, because they are 
 worth liking. " 
 
 "How does it happen that the girls worth liking all 
 live in some Hemlock Street or Orchard Place, and 
 are daughters of sea captains or shoe-shop people ? " 
 
 "I don t know, aunt, I m sure," she answered most 
 demurely. Then taking up the other end of the argu 
 ment, "Was n t Mr. Gould Finche a shipmaster, too? " 
 
 Mr. Clymer rose to that challenge and to the oppor 
 tunity in his especial line of positional and genealogical 
 conversance. 
 
 "That s a very different case," he said loftily, as if 
 he had been himself a Gould Finche. "He sailed his 
 own vessels, and carried his own cargoes. He voyaged 
 to the Canary Islands and to India, and brought home 
 teas and spices and wines and silks. He made a big 
 fortune. Besides, it s a different family. His mother 
 was a Siskin and his wife was a Redpoll. They re all 
 birds of a feather, and flock together, the Linnets 
 and the Bullfinches and the Grosbekes and the Rice 
 Buntings ; even the Larkes and the Sparrowes come in 
 for the crumbs. You get into a solidarity there." 
 
 Mr. Clymer emunerated the list unctuously. It was 
 something to know the genus well enough to run over 
 the nomenclature of all the species at an instant s warn 
 ing. He laughed as he ended with the Larkes and the 
 Sparrowes and the crumbs. 
 
 " Why is it always somebody that was ? " asked Es 
 tabel. "Isn t there anybody that is?" 
 
 "Plenty, little girl, plenty that will be the was-es
 
 88 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 by and by. Only we have to take the world as it s 
 made, so far, and hold on to what s fast. It s the 
 was-es that count. The is isn t finished; it s only in 
 the process; results aren t established." 
 
 "I think I d set my whole mind and strength, then, 
 to establishing results, and helping other folks establish 
 theirs. I guess that s what has made the was-es count, 
 after all." 
 
 Mr. Clymer laughed. He delighted in shrewdness. 
 
 "I guess you 11 do, little girl, one way or another," 
 he said. "However," he resumed to his wife, "there s 
 no particular objection to these Goodwins. They re 
 not exactly tiptop, perhaps ; but they re in the way to 
 it. Captain Goodwin is one of the plain, solid, well- 
 ballasted sort, that s a good deal respected. And now 
 I think of it, his wife was a daughter of old Weaver 
 Bird. Estabel isn t so far out, after all. If you want 
 to get to the dome of the State House, you 11 have to 
 go up the stairs. " 
 
 Sara Sullivant put the same point with a difference, 
 when Estabel confided to her, in her delight, that the 
 Goodwins were coming. 
 
 "I know the Goodwins," she said. "They re nice 
 folks. I had a cousin lived with them till she was 
 married. If they ain t first pick, they re the go- 
 with- ems; they always keep good company. And 
 the way to come to lead the choir is to begin by singing 
 in the chorus." Sara Sullivant had been to singing 
 school, and had "sat in the seats," down in Brierville, 
 and she knew. Brierville is an epitome, also. 
 
 Estabel Charlock was not a crushed, annihilated crea 
 ture, by any means. The crushers and annihilators are 
 not the rule, whatever a Corinna Chilstone here or there 
 may seem to demonstrate. But the Corinna Chilstones 
 have a power in their own little conclaves. Corinna 
 Chilstone had a good deal of schoolgirl and embryo 
 social power just here in Mount Street. Her mother
 
 SOCIAL ICEBERGS. 89 
 
 was a fashionable woman ; the daughters of half a dozen 
 other fashionable families were her mates in the home 
 neighborhood and at Mr. Satterwood s. They ran down 
 their house steps, greeting, waiting for, and overtaking 
 each other, of a morning ; they returned from school 
 in a merry little squad, innocent enough for the most 
 part, as individuals, but making up, as a whole, to 
 Estabel s experience, an unkindly force of repulsion and 
 exclusion. 
 
 The girls she knew best at school did not live in 
 Mount Street ; the girls she knew in Mount Street did 
 not go to Mr. Satterwood s, or belong to the Mount 
 Street squad. She felt no liberty to join these girls; 
 to call out their names and bid them stop for her; to 
 skip alongside, or backward, down the sidewalk, in 
 their charmed company ; to be bright with laugh and 
 speech and ready fun as she knew it was in her to be ; 
 above all, to share the freemasonry of an every-day, 
 all-the-time understanding of their little world and its 
 doings. This would have seemed to her really beau 
 tiful. 
 
 To have individual friendships was nice ; she was 
 fond of the Goodwins, Kitty and Helen ; of the Lew 
 ises, Margaret, Grace, and Fanny. The Lewises was 
 the one house in the whole street where she went in and 
 out, and upstairs, among the young people, with an 
 open, easy welcome. Mr. Lewis was a quiet, hard 
 working gentleman on a moderate bank salary ; in his 
 family there was plenty of home pleasantness, but no 
 thing gay, nothing that commanded outside considera 
 tion or large opportunity. They lived very much within 
 themselves, yet such outreach as they had was of the 
 best ; so it was that Estabel was permitted the intimacy. 
 
 Everything was sporadic with Estabel. Here and 
 there, now and then, she had her happy occasions of tea 
 drinkings, of juvenile parties, of drives and visits with 
 her aunt, above all, of public entertainments. But she
 
 90 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 felt in all semi-detached. She saw others who seemed to 
 live in a commonwealth of easy and continual privilege ; 
 and she wanted to be, not individual, hut of a company. 
 There were people enough, why not ? Why should she 
 only join on here and there, uncertainly? She would 
 like to train with a troop, to he in step and harmony. 
 She had always longed for it, in her far isolations in 
 Stillwick. 
 
 Of course, there had been girls in Stillwick, but she 
 had never found any within her immediate reach that 
 she could fully consort with; she was out of the squad 
 there, on the other side. In her little girlhood she 
 had not cared for corncob dollies and broken-china baby 
 houses along back fence rails ; nor for riotous games of 
 " tag " and " follow the leader, " in and out of door- 
 yards and through the barns and milking-pens. She 
 could construct children of her own fancy, and lovely 
 houses for them to live in, with furnishings unlimited 
 to the positive signs of fragmentary crockery ; it was 
 easier to make believe the whole than to be handicapped 
 with insufficient, contradictory realities. 
 
 She did love the sweet-smelling haymows ; she had 
 a sympathy for the great cows with their mysteriously 
 quiet eyes that had all day long been gazing abroad over 
 wide pastures, where they knew also every little clover 
 head and grass blade and clump of weeds that they came 
 to in their diligent, careful cropping, and all the shady 
 pools where they drank the plentiful cool water, and 
 the soft hollows under branching trees where they laid 
 themselves down in their red and tawny heaps to munch 
 and meditate. She understood cow life; here again 
 was the pleasure of the friendly herd. She liked the 
 searching out of secret nests where the hens worked 
 their daily miracle, and hoarded their white treasures ; 
 often the near exchange of glances, eye to eye, with 
 a demure, brave feathered creature who would keep her 
 own place, let whom might come by, only lifting her
 
 SOCIAL ICEBERGS. 91 
 
 round head with its tremulous red comb a little higher 
 with a watchful self-assertion which Estabel would never 
 attack nor dispute. She did love daring games of 
 flights from mow to mow, or from the high-piled masses 
 under the rough-timbered roof down into the low bay 
 just full enough to receive the fall into an elastic safety. 
 She had more than once come in with hay straws cling 
 ing to her dress and hair, the latter in a free tumble, 
 its ribbon lost, to confront Cousin Lucy Henslee 
 and once, Harry with her in an unexpected visit. 
 And how could they perceive the nice distinctions be 
 tween one sort of romp and another which were so pal 
 pable to her imaginative intuitions ? 
 
 It was not strange that Harry Henslee, here in the 
 city, seeing Estabel, as he had expected, making small 
 evidence of "getting on " with what from his point of 
 view was the "nice set," should put down the fact to 
 natural consequence and suppose that the Stillwick 
 roughness and crudity yet adhered, somewhere, to hin 
 der. 
 
 He was very loyal. He often came to Mount Street 
 of an evening ; he sent flowers when he knew she was 
 going to a party; he danced with her when he met her, 
 but this was only now and then. He went to a good 
 many dances where she was not invited. There was 
 one which her Aunt Clymer permitted nay, urged 
 Estabel, against the girl s instinctive disinclination 
 to give, where was but a faint sprinkling of the young 
 aristocracy who had been asked, but who had other en 
 gagements, indispositions, very literally veracious, 
 or who said with an equal covert veracity that it was 
 "out of their power to accept." 
 
 These things made Harry indignant for her in two 
 directions, against those who would not come and against 
 those who had been in such impolitic haste to invite. 
 But he could not help the resultant impression, accord 
 ing to his own anticipation, that Estabel was out of her
 
 92 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 own sphere in Topthorpe, and would not easily slip into 
 another. As he had said to his Aunt Lucy, he could 
 not, single handed, do much about it ; if he had had 
 mother or sister it would have heen different. 
 
 There was one way in which a man, single handed, 
 could give that single hand to a woman and lift her up, 
 triumphant, to his side. But he and Estabel were only 
 boy and girl. Even in his boyhood of eighteen years, 
 this way, or an abstract idea of it, did occur to Harry 
 Henslee as such things will sometimes suggest them 
 selves to either sex at eighteen. The practical possibil 
 ity was in a safe distance, as yet, certainly ; but it crossed 
 his thought with a kind of chivalrous exultation, how 
 easily some fellow might do it in such a case, and what 
 fun it would be to see people s faces. 
 
 And yet Harry Henslee did love prettiness and styl 
 ishness and ready-made adaptation to the politest life. 
 Estabel s very honesty and transparency were against 
 her in this last matter; and as to the others, whose de 
 velopment might of course be within the possibilities 
 that include all things, why, it would take time to show. 
 
 "And Topthorpe is a difficult place to develop in," 
 the young fellow remarked to himself acutely. "To be 
 of Topthorpe you must be born Topthorpe. Nascitur ; 
 non fit. "
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 LATITUDES: AND BURNT ALMONDS. 
 
 NEVERTHELESS, Estabel was developing. Even in 
 the outside things about which she had been practically 
 so negligent, she was, however intermittently backslid 
 ing, catching new influence and making gain. 
 
 Not all at once could all her faulty little habits fall 
 away from her. Not always did even her sense of 
 "whatsoever things are lovely" prevent her heedlessness 
 of the apparent when she was most eager for the essen 
 tial. Not seldom she deserved criticism, and she was 
 very sure never to escape it. 
 
 A difficult lesson would take up her whole morning 
 thought and time when she was supposed to be making 
 her school toilet ; and then, with ten minutes to reach 
 her place and report to call, on would go cloak and 
 bonnet, and off she would hurry, forgetting that she had 
 pulled out the soiled ruffles from neck and wristband of 
 her gown and had failed to replace them ; or that a 
 spot or tear had for two days already disfigured it con 
 spicuously ; or that her hair ribbon had been tied too 
 many times without a smoothing. Her problem in 
 geometry was worked out in faultless drawing or her 
 lesson in physics conquered ; and a small triangular flap 
 in her skirt, or an oleaginous trace needing a chemical 
 absorbent or detergent, did not matter to her in com 
 parison. But they mattered in the eyes of the spick 
 and span damsels who might stand far below her in the 
 class, and they were recorded against her, keeping her 
 ranked down among the "common."
 
 94 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 How it would have been as to time and permanent 
 result was fortunately not left to her own unaided ex 
 perience. 
 
 Sara Sullivant took her generously in hand, and Sara 
 Sullivant was an efficient auxiliary. She discerned 
 what was wanted ; she watched and supplied without 
 demonstration, but with an untiring faithfulness. By 
 and by there were no more placket slips to be pinned 
 up, no more rips in stockings, no more frays or hitches 
 or grease spots; no touch of yesterday s mud on shoes 
 or hems ; a fresh pocket handkerchief replaced the 
 crumpled wad that had very likely served to rub a slate ; 
 the pigtail and the wisped or missing ribbon became 
 things of the past. Sara offered to "do her hair; " 
 and the thick, soft locks were rolled back prettily from 
 the temples, and the smooth braids fastened low behind 
 with a silver pin. 
 
 Other matters were improved also. The solecism of 
 the old best dress for school was abolished. Two dark 
 merinos, a garnet color and a mazarin blue, had been 
 provided for her winter wear; and although the coveted 
 supply of linen collars and cuffs had not been added, 
 those small wares not being at that time procurable by 
 the dozen at every shop, sewing machines being but in 
 the near future of invention, and Mrs. Clymer not fond 
 of plain needlework, the substitute of cambric edgings 
 that stood up about her really pretty throat and peeped 
 from her sleeves around her wrists was not by any means 
 amiss ; and Sara took punctual care that they were kept 
 crisp and fresh. If things had but begun so, half the 
 battle might have been won or spared. Mrs. Clymer *s 
 proposition was correct ; it was her working out that had 
 been mistaken ; first impressions go for a good deal and 
 last for a long time. 
 
 In school itself, as a pupil. Estabel was happy. Les 
 sons were a delight to her. She had a pleasure in 
 maps and dictionaries akin to that of searching in woods
 
 LATITUDES: AND BURNT ALMONDS. 95 
 
 and meadows for their hidden growths and blossoms. 
 She put her imagination into all places ; she held the 
 round world in her thought and rejoiced in perfecting 
 her mental model of it to clear and precise detail. She 
 explored eagerly the roots and relations of language. 
 To construe a fine, difficult passage and get the living 
 intent of it was like writing a poem herself. And in 
 "composition," the ordinary schoolgirl s bugbear, she 
 was simply "out on a picnic." Numbers were sublime 
 to her. Their very difficulties were inspiring because 
 they were the difficulties of truth. To do a sum one 
 must be sincerely exact. There could be no evasion, no 
 slipping over obstinate figures and proportions ; no* arriv 
 ing at results other than those involved in absolutely 
 honest process. In all the complications of mathemat 
 ical science, the science upon which worlds are built and 
 moved, there was no lie. It seemed to Estabel like a 
 religion. 
 
 "Studying together " in pairs for the hour or two 
 after recess was an indulgence allowed upon due request 
 and with due discretion. This pairing off was largely 
 a matter of friendships, an opportunity for speech; but 
 the real help that Estabel could give secured to her 
 some companionships which might not otherwise have 
 been so readily accorded. When Estabel felt this she 
 did not refuse, but she made the association a purely 
 business partnership. In her own way she was the 
 proudest girl in school. 
 
 " Sit with me to-day, " said Corinna Chilstone to Pen 
 Westington. "What do you want to go there for? " 
 
 "There " was the corner of the table next which was 
 Estabel s seat, and Penelope was moving toward it as 
 she turned back from the little group of petitioners 
 around Mr. Satterwood s desk. It was observable that 
 Mr. Satterwood never hesitated to give permission when 
 the question was "May I study with Miss Charlock?" 
 There was sure to be genuine, quiet study and no cover
 
 96 SQUAKE PEGS. 
 
 for small chatter ; and whoever studied with Miss Char 
 lock was also sure to make an appreciable step forward 
 in her work. 
 
 Penelope drew her arm away a little impatiently from 
 Corinna s imperious touch. "She always knows which 
 end of the string to pull to ravel out the sentences. 
 And besides," the girl added bravely, "I like her." 
 
 When Penelope Westington walked home one day in 
 the recess with Estabel, preliminary to their now regular 
 stance over their Virgil, Mrs. Clymer was ter quaterque 
 beata. 
 
 She bade Estabel, who had run upstairs with the 
 announcement and to say she had come home for lunch 
 eon, take her friend into the dining-room and ring for 
 Archibald. Which being done, Archibald had swiftly 
 appeared, and being asked for something to eat, had 
 spread a fine small damask cloth at one end of the table 
 and proceeded to place thereon, as matter of course, the 
 daintiest of china and crystal for the slightly required 
 service; after that a couple of delicious little chicken 
 patties, with rolls and butter; had filled their glasses 
 with water and set on from the sideboard a basket of 
 white grapes and rosy lady apples ; then putting the 
 silver table bell at Estabel s right hand, had vanished 
 into his pantry. 
 
 It was not necessary for the two girls ten minutes, 
 and the bite in hand expected, but it was very elegantly 
 done, and Estabel presided with a thrill of pleasure at 
 the aesthetic and impressional effect. How could she 
 help her little sense of exultation that one of these 
 school somebodies should have a glimpse of how one of 
 the nobodies-in-particular the " Common Things " 
 lived at home ? 
 
 She understood Archibald s ready kindness also. Ac 
 cording to his lights, and with the tact of his kind, he 
 had magnified his opportunity. He had done it just as 
 once he had improvised what he thought a similar suit-
 
 LATITUDES: AND BURNT ALMONDS. 97 
 
 ableness of importance for her. Sent to escort her home 
 one evening from a little party, he had given the word 
 at the door, "Miss Charlock s carriage," when there 
 was no carriage for her in all the waiting line. 
 
 "This way, miss," he had deferentially signified 
 when she had appeared ; and then, preceding her by a 
 few paces only, had fallen slightly behind again, and 
 with no further word of explanation had so walked the 
 few squares around to Mount Street and Number 84. 
 Servants understand the giving of a color, and to their 
 apprehension the variance of a shade is of a cardinal 
 consequence. 
 
 If Mrs. Westington had understood all that lay be 
 hind in a child s heart of real human longing that 
 found no better way under present conditions of com 
 forting itself, than with the loyal contrivance and inno 
 cent acceptance of such small parade, she might not 
 perhaps, when Penelope told her of the fine little enter 
 tainment, have said so guardedly but decidedly: "It 
 was not a proper luncheon for you, my dear; don t go 
 so far from school again in recess ; you must have hur 
 ried in eating and afterward to get back ; " or have 
 repeated the incident to her sister, with the remark, 
 "Such vulgar overdoing! " Very likely she had little 
 notion of the overdoing of her own careful principles of 
 natural selection by certain of her daughter s approved 
 companions, which this little ten minutes of home im 
 portance had to make up for to Estabel Charlock ; of 
 the dismalness she and others of the unadjusted had 
 had to suffer in the half hours of recess, when Corinna 
 Chilstone and her retainers climbed to their typical 
 " impregnable castle " in the open lots where the gravel 
 excavation stopped, leaving a small isolated green pro 
 jection outside a garden still fenced in, and there main 
 tained their supreme elevation against all ordinary 
 comers ; these last reduced to choose between a dull 
 street walk or a game of restricted play in the bricked
 
 98 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 house yard. Unless, indeed, they might bethink them 
 selves of the beautiful green ways under the grand old 
 elms of the Long Mall, easily near, that were open to 
 everybody. But that unconditionalness was what spoiled 
 allowance ; it was not prerogative. Like the inherit 
 ance of all things, it was only for the meek. It was 
 already getting to be so "common " to go there! 
 
 It is not altogether easy for sensible, contented 
 grown people to comprehend the sharp trials of such 
 petty, childish differencing of place and choice, as if 
 one poor little spot, appropriated by a few, could leave 
 no other to be appropriated; could become more keenly 
 desirable than any other in the wide city, or the wide 
 earth, for the time being. If it were deserted by the 
 few the many would not care to succeed to that from 
 which the charm of privilege had gone ; the charm would 
 have been transferred elsewhere ; a new spot would have 
 been made inaccessible ; even a child would find out 
 that both privilege and denial had been purely factitious 
 things. It is not easy for real growth to comprehend 
 the same small struggles and heartburnings of a later 
 life, or to see that they are the same. Yet they go 
 on; there will always remain such a large proportion of 
 ungrown-up persons in this little kindergarten of hu 
 manity ! 
 
 Estabel was by no means without recourse in the 
 daily little tacit or open encounters of her girl world. 
 Ordinarily proud and self-contained, she could now and 
 then meet the blunt weapons of a crass savagery with 
 a keen, fine blade of sarcasm, flashed forth when least 
 expected, by herself or any one ; or she would escape, 
 with some sudden turn of grace and spirit, an intended 
 blow. 
 
 One day Mr. Satterwood gave his scholars an exercise 
 in geography, testing their general and comparative 
 knowledge as to influences and conditions of varying 
 latitudes. It was a questioning upon lines and bounda-
 
 LATITUDES: AND BURNT ALMONDS. 99 
 
 ries, climatic effects, differing densities of population, 
 characteristics of inhabitants, products, industries, lim 
 its of vegetations, temperatures, all that would indi 
 cate a certain comprehensive and deductive intelligence 
 of facts and their relations to life and its possibilities 
 upon our globe. 
 
 Estabel delighted in this geographic generalization ; it 
 was as a holding of the whole earth in a grasp ; an under 
 standing of its vital construction and administrative 
 order. Her answers were statistically correct, luminous 
 with perception. Mr. Satterwood s face beamed when 
 ever the turn came to her. 
 
 Therefore, he and the whole class were startled into 
 blank surprise when, after traveling all the way up from 
 the equator in a succession of interesting data and dis 
 quisitions, the last question of all came to Estabel. 
 
 "At what degree of latitude do we find impassable 
 ice, and the end of practical advance or occupation ? " 
 
 A gleam of sudden mischief shot across Estabel s 
 face. 
 
 "At a little above forty," she said recklessly. 
 
 "Miss Charlock! " 
 
 "That s as far north as I ve tried it, Mr. Satter- 
 wood." 
 
 The girls for the most part simply stared. Mr. 
 Satterwood s face betrayed a relaxation of amusement, 
 which he held in check. Estabel had again a "convert 
 ible 3 " as result of her brilliant recitation. 
 
 After a while the joke crept round. 
 
 "So silly! " said the girls who could not have been 
 bright. 
 
 " So rude ! " said some whose politenesses were ice 
 bound. 
 
 It did her no good. Electric coruscations thaw no 
 thing. She remained frozen out. What was worse, 
 she was, like other Arctic explorers, frozen in; she 
 could not set sail and get away.
 
 100 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Dancing school was a severer ordeal than day school. 
 The representative set here was the exclusive one ; there 
 was little refuge for the isolated. 
 
 There were no regular seats ; there were, conse 
 quently, seats of conventional prescription ; odd ones 
 were more easily kept odd and put aside. There was 
 no silent rule, no constant occupation ; there was, there 
 fore, social choice and congregation of affinity. The 
 good times were in certain denned yet unpremeditated 
 good places sometimes here, sometimes there, hut al 
 ways by some indisputable determination and consent. 
 
 The boys, gathered more heterogeneously at the other 
 side of the hall, perceived readily enough how the 
 " gentler sex " resolved itself into nucleus and nebula, 
 and which way the successful rush would tend when 
 partners were called. It would require some brave gen 
 erosity to walk down the comet-like trail of girls along 
 the line to its thin end and deliberately lead out one of 
 the left-overs. 
 
 Signer Scalchi had often to take a reluctant youth by 
 the elbow and march him up to a polite introduction." 
 
 Perhaps the effrontery of girls or women in asserting 
 demarcation is only equaled by the timidity of men 
 and boys in crossing their invisible barriers. 
 
 In the leisure time between the classes and the dances 
 there was talk, subdued frolic, reading of story books 
 by the more quiet or the neglected, and candy munch 
 ing, the latter an established and important feature of 
 the occasion. Offerings of sweetmeats from youthful 
 admirers to their little belles were as much in order, 
 and held as delicate, as those of flowers, while greatly 
 more substantial in delight. The girls who had more 
 pocket money than adoration usually stopped on their 
 way from home at Leduc s and provided themselves. 
 Leduc s burnt almonds and chocolate drops were irre 
 sistible. Estabel could always command a supply of 
 these, and a story book made her happy anywhere.
 
 LATITUDES: AND BURNT ALMONDS. 101 
 
 Coming back from her class one afternoon, she noticed 
 as she approached her place that one of the Arkleys had 
 taken up the volume she had left there, and was intently 
 reading it. It was Miss Leslie s "Althea Vernon." 
 
 As Estabel seated herself the other girl looked up. 
 " Oh, is it yours ? " she said, and laid the book down 
 without thanks or apology. 
 
 Estabel drew a paper parcel from her pocket. It 
 was a simple white cone, twisted at the end. In those 
 days there were no bonbonnieres. She held it out, un 
 folding it at the top. "Will you have some almonds? " 
 she said. She was too innately polite that is, kind 
 to take back even her own book without proffering 
 some little ready civility. 
 
 But Hepsie Arkley caught at the instant an admon 
 ishing glance from her sister, who sat enthroned in the 
 very angle of the corner of honor for the day, from 
 which radiated the little groups of privilege. She shook 
 her head and started up. Her elbow struck the out 
 stretched hand of Estabel, the paper cone was jostled 
 from her hold, and the sweet confections rolled rattling 
 upon the floor. 
 
 Signor Scalchi had a headache, perhaps, or his new 
 pumps hurt him; it was one of his "fiddlebow days," 
 when that ensign was most imperative with rap and 
 peremptory gesture. He turned frowningly toward the 
 sound and started with his firm-poised tread straight 
 for the spot. 
 
 Estabel had just picked up the last little chocolates. 
 
 " Mees Sharloke ! " the dancing master accosted her 
 with terrible accent and emphasis, and with uplifted 
 bow, "you vill please go into de dressing groom to eat 
 up your leetle re-fection. Dees hall ees not von restau 
 rant ! " 
 
 A titter went round the benches. 
 
 Estabel stood up, proud and flaming. A window 
 was open close by, for the day was mild and the hall
 
 102 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 had been overheated. With one scornful sidewise toss, 
 she sent the paper of confectionery through into the 
 street ; then she swept such a beautiful curtsey that 
 Signer Scalchi smiled, in spite of himself, a prof essional 
 approbation. "My little refection is finished, signer," 
 she said. If the first syllable of "finished" had a 
 slight touch of the signer s own voweling it may have 
 been an involuntary echo. 
 
 With a bow, half sarcastic, half friendly, the irate 
 gentleman left her, and returned to his instruction. 
 From the class of boys under tuition, and broken in 
 stantly from line at the signer s diversion, a voice was 
 heard, "She s a spunky little cuss, anyhow! " 
 
 " Yong zhenteelmen, your places ! " thundered the 
 master, and the master s bow fell sharply and reiteratedly 
 upon the back of his violin. "Master Sheelstone, you 
 zhoost like von eel ! " 
 
 Again, it did no good. Spirit, "spunk," cleverness, 
 only marked her as exceptional ; she had no business to 
 be brilliant or conspicuous ; no business with repartee, 
 or any sort of getting the better; it was only fresh and 
 flagrant casus belli and by no manner of means a claim 
 to concession or favor. Such things "would never do 
 in Topthorpe." 
 
 Estabel was just and logical by nature. She could 
 not understand it. Sometimes, turning the whole 
 strange puzzle over in her mind, she faced it in direct, 
 grave fashion, and demanded of it what right, what 
 reason, it had to be. Least of all could she understand 
 why older people, who had everything in their own 
 hands for themselves, should care or should submit. 
 
 What was this intangible "place in society?" Why 
 did n t they just go on as somebody must have gone 
 on long ago and make their own place and live their 
 own good and pleasant life in the making? You see 
 she had the misfortune to be where the older restless 
 ness and discontent were evident day by day.
 
 LATITUDES : AND BURNT ALMONDS. 103 
 
 "I think, Aunt Vera, " she said one afternoon, not 
 long after these later episodes, "that you have as beau 
 tiful a house and as beautiful tilings in it as there can 
 be in all Topthorpe. Don t you? " 
 
 "Of course. Your uncle has spared no expense. 
 "Why shouldn t it be as beautiful as anybody s? " 
 
 "Why don t you just live in it, then, and have the 
 good of it ? Why do you care about going to Mrs. 
 Seveare s? " 
 
 There had been a not unusual sort of discussion that 
 morning at the breakfast table between Mr. and Mrs. 
 Clynier apropos to a certain not forthcoming invitation. 
 
 "I don t care in the least about going, child. You 
 don t understand. I only think I might have expected 
 to be invited. I have asked her here." 
 
 "But she didn t come." 
 
 "That makes no difference. Perhaps she could n t. 
 People who have a great many engagements can t al 
 ways accept. But they might return an obligation." 
 
 "Maybe they have too many to return, all at once. 
 But it seems to me it s only obligation, after all. You 
 don t care about going, and she doesn t care about com 
 ing. I don t see what it s all good for. If I had 
 such a great, elegant house, and could do as I liked, 
 I d have such a lovely way of my own in it that I 
 never need stop to think about other people s ways or 
 houses that I didn t have anything to do with, and 
 wasn t really interested in." 
 
 "You d be an extremely wise, woman, and you d 
 turn the world right over with your little finger, no 
 doubt." 
 
 "Well, anybody s little finger can do it to their 
 own latitude and longitude if they like. It s hung 
 on an axis, " said Estabel with more cleverness of illus 
 tration than exactness in grammar. 
 
 At that moment Dr. Ulick North walked in.
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 DOCTOR ULICK NORTH. 
 
 HOWEVER grand and sweet in its original Greek or 
 in the Latinized form in which it comes to us, " Ulysses " 
 is not a pretty name in Anglo-Saxon ears. It seems 
 hardly a Christian name at all ; yet it was young Dr. 
 North s, descended to him from a maternal grandfather. 
 He had felt the heirloom an infliction. Not yet had 
 the Homeric title hecome historic in our own land ; our 
 national Ulysses was yet in his own rising manhood, an 
 unknown contemporary of this other of our simple story. 
 Yet there was possible augury in the christening of 
 both. For Odysseus stands, according to the lexicons, 
 for "The Angry;" the readily roused, we may infer, 
 to generous and martial indignation ; the quick to battle 
 for the right. 
 
 The merciful shortening by which the archaic prgeno- 
 men was familiarly handled in the instance under narra 
 tion became its bearer well, and derogates nothing 
 from heroic significance. It has a quick, alert, positive 
 sound ; it even suggests in very commonplace dialect a 
 prophecy of conquering. And if Ulick North was any 
 thing he was quick, positive, determined ; aggressive 
 against whatever he found challenging a righteous con 
 tention. He was keen, too, as such spirits are, to de 
 tect the thing so to be opposed. He had the fault of 
 his virtue ; he was always diagnosing the mischief in 
 human life from its every least developing symptom. 
 He was critical, cynical ; unsparing in judgment, though 
 just and fair in circumstance, and open to new evidence.
 
 DOCTOR ULICK NORTH. 105 
 
 He could throw himself over when he received convic 
 tion of mistake, but it is to be confessed that the con 
 viction must be very strong. Mere misgiving, question, 
 would not do ; it was apt to be put aside as a weak 
 doubt, of which there was no real benefit to be taken. 
 He stood upon that which was already established in 
 his own mind until the ground broke from under him. 
 You perceive, therefore, that it might be quite possible 
 he should be prejudiced. It was pretty certain that he 
 would be called so. 
 
 Ulick North was nephew to Mr. Abel Clymer. He 
 was twenty-seven years old, beginning to get a foothold 
 in his profession, though despising all personal effort or 
 social diplomacy for obtaining practice. Mr. Clymer 
 had a good opinion of Dr. Ulick, and foresaw success 
 for him, not an inconsiderable element in the forma 
 tion of Uncle Abel s good opinion. He made him wel 
 come to his house, and Ulick came. It grew to be a 
 habit with him to come often. Persons of a scrutiniz 
 ing, analytical disposition are prone to follow certain 
 lines until they make them grooves. They become in 
 terested in mere investigation ; their theories are slowly 
 building; the working of things, the manifestations of 
 motive, attract them, almost independent of personality, 
 or even of intrinsic worthiness. Such persons are meta 
 physically curious. Also, if they have high standards 
 and abstract perceptions of their own, they find so rarely 
 that which passes the ordeal of their critical tests, so 
 little anywhere in which they can rest with full concord 
 and acceptance, that they are fain to make compro 
 mise, and compensate themselves with the scientific 
 satisfactions of experiment ; with the clear apprehension 
 of the world as it is, since they cannot force the world 
 to be as they would have it. Such men come inevitably 
 to stand more and more aloof from life. Unless some 
 great and generous experience makes them one, before 
 they are aware, with a supreme reality in it, they are as in
 
 106 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 the world and not of it ; lookers on, indeed, as if standing 
 apart from the very planet in space, and planting their 
 clever surveying instruments to take its measurement. 
 
 Ulick North made a study of the household life in 
 Mount Street as he knew it. He waited to see what 
 would come of it. It was in its way typical. He was 
 in no sense mean or disloyal in this watching and weigh 
 ing. His personal feeling was kindly enough. It was 
 simply " a case, " which illustrated to him a whole class 
 of peculiar derangements to which certain forms of 
 human organization are liable. 
 
 There was a degree of hardness in this which was re 
 ferable to a cause. At twenty-four Ulick North had 
 had an experience which embitters many men, ruins 
 others, and leaves a few in a lifelong blank. With him, 
 it simply closed the early vision and opened a shrewd, 
 disillusioned perception which seemed to him a clearer 
 the only really clear seeing. He had yet to learn 
 that the finest, truest discernment is not of mere outline 
 and measure, but of shadow, tint, perspective, and high, 
 sweet, glorifying light ; the impalpable things which 
 make the whole showing, to a divine apprehension ; as 
 we, from our own best and most beautiful sympathies, 
 must interpret it, or be soul and color blind. 
 
 Dr. Ulick North walked in upon the little conversa 
 tion between Estabel and Aunt Vera. 
 
 "Problems? " he asked, dropping into a seat and the 
 conversation. 
 
 "Yes. Latitudes and longitudes distances and 
 differences on the earth, " said Estabel. She wondered 
 if Dr. North would catch up what lay hidden behind 
 the half explanation. He was so quick, so shrewd. 
 She liked to try his shrewdness. 
 
 "Ah! First rectify your globe," was his answer. 
 
 "Estabel thinks she can turn the globe round with 
 her finger, " said Aunt Vera.
 
 DOCTOR ULICK NORTH. 107 
 
 "I said anybody could. It turns on an axis." 
 
 "To determine accurately certain important points 
 and relations you must elevate your axis at the indi 
 cated pole, " said Dr. North. 
 
 "To get your own place into the zenith I know," 
 said Estabel. "But my class hasn t worked out those 
 problems yet. We re only in the latitudes and longi 
 tudes. And I said you d better find out your own and 
 stay in em, particularly when everything s very nice 
 and comfortable there." 
 
 Dr. North laughed. Estabel was pleased. She 
 liked to make Dr. North laugh. Usually she was a 
 little afraid of him. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer interrupted. The metaphor was grow 
 ing too difficult for her. She brought the matter down 
 to a literal application. 
 
 "Estabel thinks I might live my own life, having 
 pleasant things enough to live it with, and let other 
 people alone." 
 
 "A broad view to take." The laugh was gone and 
 Dr. North s tone was ironical. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had not intended an injustice. Indeed, 
 she was not coriscious of any such doing or causing. 
 Estabel was too proud to explain again. 
 
 "I m not tall enough yet, I suppose," she said, "to 
 look over other people s heads. Maybe I shall grow. 
 At present I find a good deal of a crowd in the way, 
 and some people walk on stilts. Haud inexperta loquor, " 
 she added with schoolgirl pedantry. 
 
 "Oh, if you re going to talk Latin, I give up," said 
 Ulick. And Estabel became mute. Angry with herself, 
 she was furious with Dr. Ulick. 
 
 "He needn t put a girl down so talking Latin 
 half the time himself, " she protested inwardly. And 
 her color mounted high, and her eyes shone with re 
 pressed indignation. 
 
 Dr. North was exceedingly amused
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 CENSORSHIP. 
 
 IT is a tiresome and a hackneyed thing to do, to 
 dwell upon the trivialities of motive and effort in a cer 
 tain subformation of social life. One wonders why the 
 trivialities themselves are not yet so tiresome and so 
 hackneyed that they should be left off and outgrown. 
 
 In a sense they are becoming so; though from the 
 beginnings of human society until now and Heaven 
 only knows how much longer the same incomplete 
 humanity has worked, and will work and struggle, to 
 ward its ends mistaking waymarks all along for ends 
 in varying forms of the same pettiness and folly, 
 only more or less disguised with an outer dignity and 
 a prescribed courtesy. 
 
 We have to do with a young girl s life. It began 
 its first maturing under precisely these circumstances of 
 stimulus, pressure, disappointment. It was somehow 
 out of place and alignment, and was under daily force 
 and contradiction of that which it found no way either to 
 resist OP ally itself with, or to solve in its continually 
 recurring problems. 
 
 And a young girl s life is no trivial nor hackneyed 
 thing, repeated as it may be in the thousands and tens 
 of thousands of contemporary and successive experiences. 
 
 Many things are less marked and offensive to-day than 
 they were nearly a lifetime ago ; but until the Kingdom 
 comes there will be tares and wheat together in the 
 field, and only the angels can truly distinguish and 
 separate them. And the social darnel is a prickly, 
 wounding, and noxious weed.
 
 CENSORSHIP. 109 
 
 I should like to get to the more eventful passages, 
 the deeper and more continuous interests of Estabel s 
 personal history. But these were waiting and depend 
 ing. Our own early life recurs to us rather in impres 
 sion, or by small single points of very simple, if intense, 
 experience, than as an artistic or consecutive story. In 
 our growing toward the epic of our years we receive the 
 elements which render possible its development. We 
 must glance back into our own youth, as we are doing 
 now into Estabel Charlock s, to understand that which 
 in event and incident arrived later. 
 
 In the beginning of this winter she passed her six 
 teenth birthday. Indeed, that was the occasion upon 
 which the party had been given which had made Harry 
 Henslee indignant for her, that it should have been 
 attempted in such manner and so untimely, and that it 
 should have failed of kindly acceptance in the quarter 
 from which acceptance was so transparently coveted. 
 
 As Mr. Clymer said on paying the bills for music, 
 flowers, catering, and attendance, all of the costliest, 
 "The money had gone out at the big, and the party at 
 the little, end of the horn." 
 
 "You d better have waited a year or two," he re 
 marked to his wife, with as much acerbity as he, in his 
 real good-heartedness, was ever guilty of toward her. 
 And so she would. 
 
 But she answered him bravely: "We 11 wait a year 
 or two now, and then try again. Things alter, and girls 
 change. So many girls grow pretty at sixteen and on. 
 And who knows what else half a dozen years may do ? " 
 
 And then there had been, a mention of Harry Hens- 
 lee, and of his father s wealth and his only-sonship, and 
 of Colonel Henslee and the old inheritance at Stillwick. 
 "Nobody will ever turn up a nose, not even a Top- 
 thorpe nose, at Mrs. Harrison Henslee, Jr.," Mrs. 
 Clymer had declared outright, with more point than 
 elegance.
 
 110 SQUARE, PEGS. 
 
 Whether Estabel caught the last sentences of this 
 very conversation as she came downstairs and into the 
 room at its ending, or whether it was in the air about 
 her, and floated round to her perception as a thistle 
 seed floats into an open furrow, or the little bird of 
 an undiscovered telepathy brought it, cannot be dis 
 tinctly asserted ; but the idea did reach her that it was 
 not impossible she should yet grow pretty, and that 
 perhaps well, she let the rest of it float away again 
 indefinitely, leaving only a faint, sweet corollary of 
 such proposition in the suggestion of some great good 
 and change that might come - through somebody to 
 a girl who should grow pretty after she was sixteen. 
 
 And this touched her on what we may call the weak 
 side of her nature, since her nature found only weak 
 things as yet to expend itself upon, her love of 
 beauty, her passion to be of the best and the most ad 
 mirable. Her other side the side strong against 
 shams, against all mean covetousness and pretension 
 was none the less alive to touch, none the less ready to 
 be stirred to conscious motive, to resent a judgment 
 which estimated her only at what she knew to be her 
 lowest, even while unable herself to trace the little vani 
 ties and anxieties to their righteous reasons. 
 
 It is good as we remember all our old faults and 
 follies, and detect daily our new to know there is 
 One Judgment which understands us through and 
 through; that even "if our heart condemn us, God is 
 greater than our heart, and knoweth all things." 
 
 Ulick North criticised Estabel one way, Harry Hens- 
 lee the other. She felt tke censorship of both. Against 
 each she set herself with the contradiction of her oppo 
 site characteristic. With Harry she maintained her 
 high ground of indifference to superficial valuations 
 style, manner, fashion, success; with Dr. North she 
 almost made parade of she certainly did not conceal 
 her little femininities; she let him see that she con-
 
 CENSORSHIP. Ill 
 
 sidered her dress of consequence ; that she was pleased 
 with an attention ; that she liked fun and entertain 
 ment ; that she thought it nice to have plenty of money ; 
 that she enjoyed the fine tilings and the fine service her 
 aunt could command ; and that in everything she an 
 tagonized the severe cynicism which found fault with 
 what was happy and natural, insisting upon a lofty dis 
 paragement of the harmless little wishes and pursuits of 
 people who thought themselves in a pretty good sort of 
 world, if only they could secure the good of it, and be 
 let alone to enjoy it. 
 
 And yet every time she disappointed Harry she was 
 grieved ; and every time she detected disapproval or 
 sarcasm in Dr. North she was hurt and angry. 
 
 One day she was standing before the pier glass in the 
 back drawing-room, according to an almost mechanical 
 habit she had fallen into of investigating her own face 
 as one looks at a nursling plant from day to day, to see 
 if it put forth leaf or bud or any promise ; and Dr. 
 North came in behind her. 
 
 She scorned to turn too quickly. She looked at him 
 in the mirror over her own reflected shoulder, and then 
 deliberately leaned forward for a closer inspection of 
 herself. He need not think to surprise her into any 
 shame". She was doing no harm. Just as deliberately 
 she faced him presently. 
 
 "How do you do, Dr. North? I did not hear you 
 ring." 
 
 "Archibald did. I hope I did not interrupt you." 
 
 "Not at all," she answered in the politest grown-up 
 manner. 
 
 The doctor laughed, but he administered one of his 
 little straightforward blows of rebuke. 
 
 "Nobody will ever get to be a great beauty," he 
 said, "by always watching for i{*bef ore a glass." His 
 manner was as gently composed as if he had been telling 
 a patient that nobody ever got well by continually watch 
 ing his own symptoms.
 
 112 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Nobody will ever get to be a great doctor," she re 
 torted quick as a flash, "by always twisting and pinch 
 ing people in their lame, sore places ! " With that she 
 sat down exactly as if nothing had happened, and as if 
 ready for some happier conversational suggestion. These 
 two slapped each other by mutual consent, as it were, 
 and neither ever quite knew whether the blow stung or 
 not. 
 
 Dr. North smiled on and left the word with her. 
 Estabel thought he did not care whether she were really 
 offended or only touchy, like a silly child, about her 
 detected silliness. He should not have that last suppo 
 sition to be indifferent about. 
 
 "How did you know I would like to be a great 
 beauty ? " she asked with a tranquil defiance. 
 
 "Isn t it a doctor s business to find out weak spots 
 and sore places ? " 
 
 "When people ask his advice and he can do them any 
 good. But I suppose he doesn t walk up to people on 
 purpose to punch their black eyes and tread on their 
 tender toes. You haven t answered my question." 
 
 "How I knew you would like to be a beauty? Well 
 because, oh, we won t quarrel about it. All girls 
 do would, I mean. " 
 
 "What for?" 
 
 "To be admired, I suppose." 
 
 "I don t want that first of all, anyhow. I d like 
 to be able to admire myself. I admire so many other 
 things." 
 
 "It wouldn t stop there. It never does. Vanity 
 takes to vanities. You d want to run about and get 
 the reflected admiration. It would be just another way 
 of looking in the glass. But I don t blame you. All 
 the world s so, all after some reflection of self-love." 
 
 "I think you have a terrible quarrel with the world, 
 Dr. North." 
 
 "It is with the world, if I take the trouble to have 
 any. It isn t personal."
 
 CENSORSHIP. 113 
 
 "Persons make the world. Don t you think well of 
 anybody ? " 
 
 "Just as well as anybody will let me." 
 
 " I think if I were you, I would pick out a world that 
 I need n t quarrel with. It must be very uncomfort 
 able." 
 
 "That world isn t made yet. And I don t expect 
 to be comfortable." 
 
 Estabel looked at him with large, inquiring eyes. 
 She longed to say something, but knew not what. 
 
 He could not tell this child of sixteen how he had 
 begun to build his world, and how its very cornerstone 
 had crumbled away from him. Even if she could un 
 derstand or care, what good would it do ? But he 
 thought, with a grim amusement, that if he had touched 
 her sore spot roughly she had very quickly, with a 
 strange sort of blind instinct, retaliated. 
 
 Something about her childish frankness, even when 
 it was petulant, attracted him ; there was an interest in 
 her peculiar, fearless, outright treatment of things. He 
 wondered what sort of woman this girl would make ; this 
 young creature, full of feminine foible as he read her, 
 yet with a kind of possible grandeur in her if foible 
 could be eliminated. He never guessed that to her he 
 was a more than equal mystery; that she had gathered 
 hint, from chance words, of something that had befallen 
 him in relations of life to which she had not yet come, 
 the idea of which caused her to be in a vague way 
 tender of him ; which touched her with a sense that 
 somebody owed him something of another s debt, so 
 that even when she was most whimsical and provokable, 
 and he most intolerant or bitter, she felt underneath all 
 a better thing that might be in him, and a sorrow for 
 him that it was not there. 
 
 He had been cruelly hurt, she apprehended, by some 
 woman; some woman, for the sake and honor of all 
 women, ought to make it up. She would like to have
 
 114 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 him believe that a different sort of woman was possible ; 
 that some girl might be growing up into a stature of 
 nobleness that that other had failed of, and he seemed 
 not to believe in any more. 
 
 She believed him to be intrinsically noble, however 
 harsh, because of that very harshness against all mean- 
 .ness and moral inferiority. She invested him with all 
 that would have made him very dangerous to her if she 
 had been twenty years old instead of sixteen. And she 
 had no dream or consciousness of what all this meant in 
 her, or might come to by permission of conducive cir 
 cumstance and continuance of intimate relations. 
 
 Furthermore, she was in her simplicity so jealous for 
 the man he was missing to be that she resented his de 
 termined cavil and discontent, his finding everywhere 
 the meanness he despised. She resisted his impugn 
 ments, and turned his bitterness back upon himself. 
 
 But she was only a child ; she resented as she com 
 passionated, childishly, and with but half understand 
 ing. He was by turns diverted and singularly moved. 
 
 And the two could not let each other alone.
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 THE REMNANT. 
 
 "THE Remnant" was to meet at Mrs. Westington s 
 on Sentry march Street. 
 
 Mrs. Westington was president, and this was the 
 annual meeting. 
 
 Mrs. Westington had a plan to propose, and she had 
 invited the ladies to bring their young daughters for 
 a social afternoon. This was a beautiful opportunity 
 for Estabel, and Mrs. Clymer eagerly appreciated it. 
 
 "The Remnant" was an old*" Topthorpe institution. 
 It had grown from the more ancient Parish Sewing So 
 ciety, or rather, it was the phoenix of one risen from 
 its ashes. 
 
 Some one had proposed calling it "The Phoenix," 
 but the other name had been decided on as declarative 
 of its special purpose, also modest and in gentle accord 
 ance with gospel precedent. It had grown to be unpa- 
 rochial, almost undenominational. 
 
 The best women in Topthorpe were its members and 
 managers. It moved on this line, the gathering and 
 bestowing of remnants, remnants of time, of thought, 
 of money, food, clothing, material, anything. There 
 were rooms where the material donations were received, 
 utilized, and dispensed. Members in turn took personal 
 charge here. It was a well-conceived, well-conducted 
 work. The social element was a very pleasant one. It 
 was largely under the control and influence of women 
 who were above clique, who needed no drawn lines to 
 fence them in; who, at any rate, recognized nothing of
 
 116 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 them here. Money, time, thought, work, sympathy in 
 a kindly object ; these were true contribution and founda 
 tion, and "The Remnant" was generously open. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had early joined the society. Her 
 money, time, work, were freely given. For the thought 
 and sympathy, those were intangible elements, and must 
 he taken for granted. Knowing Mrs. Clymer as we 
 do, it is npt difficult nor invidious to perceive where 
 her thought and sympathy took most vital hold. 
 
 Circles touch and intersect. There is always some 
 node, or tangent, at which, for a point, at least, they 
 are identical. Mrs. Clymer was tenacious of her tan 
 gents and quick to compute and catch her nodes. 
 
 During the last year she had held the treasurership. 
 She never missed a meeting. Thus she visited in Doric 
 Row, down beyond Old Park, in Sentryniarch Street, 
 in Chapel Green, and at houses in the Casino Cres 
 cent. On the first Thursday in every month, however 
 it may have been between times, she was supremely 
 content. 
 
 And now she was to take Estabel with her. Some 
 thing had happened better than she had ever antici 
 pated. 
 
 Dressed in silks, seated in their carriage, the two were 
 driven round the Old Park to Mrs. Westington s door. 
 
 Mrs. Westington received them in her drawing-room. 
 They were early, as it became an officer to be at the 
 annual meeting. Only some half-dozen others were 
 assembled when they came in. 
 
 Penelope crossed the room to greet and welcome the 
 younger guest. This was so kind and delightful that it 
 frightened Estabel. As Penelope led her over to her 
 mother it seemed to her like a presentation at court 
 if she had known anything about such an unrepublican 
 matter. 
 
 Mrs. Westington was explaining in mere outline what 
 she intended to propose in business order.
 
 THE REMNANT. 117 
 
 "It will interest the girls in the things they should 
 take up in their turn, and it will bring the young peo 
 ple together." This was what she was saying as her 
 daughter and Estabel approached. Then, and as others 
 entered, she dropped the subject, but something of it 
 was already whispered round. 
 
 "It is a lovely secret and we re all in it," Penelope 
 said to a little inquiring group about her. 
 
 Estabel stood in the edge, but Rose Alden was beside 
 her and she did not feel left out. "We are all in it," 
 sounded so kingdom-of -heaven-like in her ears. She 
 had not been so happy, she had not felt so socially 
 alive, since she had come to Topthorpe. 
 
 It only lasted with her until, arriving late, Corinna 
 Chilstone and her mother came in. Corinna joined her 
 companions, and around her and Hepsie Arkley the cold, 
 hard crystallizing began again. 
 
 She heard the whisper, "What is she here for? " and 
 the answer in Penelope s higher bred, rebuking tone, 
 "Hush, Corinna. Just what we are all here for." 
 The championship was generous ; but why should she 
 need a champion ? The old, proud resentment surged 
 up from Estabel s heart to her face and thrilled through 
 nerve and muscle. Her head went up high; her cheeks 
 burned ; she walked off toward a bay window full of 
 plants and stood apart there. The meeting was called 
 to order, and she found a corner seat sheltered by the 
 greenery. 
 
 "She heard you, Cora! " Penelope said indignantly; 
 and she came over and drew a tabouret beside Estabel s 
 chair. Then she beckoned to Rose Alden, and Rose 
 came and made a third. So they sat and listened, with 
 such interest as they might two of them, at least, 
 with an impatience for the part coming which should 
 concern themselves to the secretary s and the trea 
 surer s reports. 
 
 Various discussions followed, and several motions
 
 118 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 were made, carried, or laid on the table. At last came 
 the motion to adjourn the business meeting. 
 
 In declaring it so voted the president kept her stand 
 ing position beside the central table, and rapped with 
 her thimble upon its edge as the hum of voices began. 
 
 "I have now a proposition to make," she said. "I 
 have asked these young ladies here, who are more or 
 less naturally connected with us, in the idea that they 
 might like to and that we might like to have them 
 form themselves into a subordinate society, with a 
 name of their own, to do the lighter, primary work for 
 our object ; undertaking the part that it will be good 
 for the young to do, the little things and the little 
 errands auxiliary to our own work, by which the whole 
 will gain, and our forces be economized. Especially, 
 that they should make direct use and bestowal of their 
 own remnants, which will involve a careful and prob 
 ably unaccustomed consideration of what their own 
 remnants are or may be. There is a great deal that 
 girls may do, and that they may be learning to do, that 
 may be a part of their best education. Later, if you 
 approve, I can explain and suggest more in detail. I 
 now move that we invite our daughters to organize 
 themselves into this cooperative club and leave the deci 
 sion and the action upon it to themselves." 
 
 Upon this the vote was taken, amid many kindly 
 smiles and with a gentle rustle of approbation ; and the 
 new society was invited to appoint and systematize it 
 self, all those who accepted the suggestion and desired 
 to join to withdraw to the library together for the 
 necessary preliminaries. A little memorandum of the 
 steps to be taken in parliamentary order would be found 
 upon the library table. 
 
 This was charming. It was a kind of coming out 
 into society. Indeed, it was a beginning of that in the 
 best way, as Mrs. Westington meant that it should be. 
 The leading people in Topthorpe were not all Arkleys 
 and Chilstones.
 
 THE REMNANT. 119 
 
 " Come, " said Penelope cordially to the two beside 
 her as she rose to lead the way. And Rose Alden 
 gently linked her arm with Estabel s, to whom the word 
 had been most evidently spoken. 
 
 How could Estabel refuse ? And yet she went reluc 
 tantly with these girls, knowing that she should not be 
 unanimously welcome, as was apparently every one of 
 the others, not wholly in part and understanding with 
 the young set so easily at home together. What a thing 
 it was to have a place that nobody disputed a recog 
 nition that was y.oluntary and of course from all that 
 little world ! What a nice thing it would be if nobody 
 need be especially kind to her, because none would think 
 of being in the least unkind ! 
 
 She sat silently through the little formalities, in 
 which Penelope had been so instructed by her mother 
 that she could follow without hesitation or difficulty the 
 written programme provided. 
 
 A chairman was appointed, Penelope herself. Then 
 the question of forming themselves into the society sug 
 gested was moved, seconded, and voted upon. A presi 
 dent was chosen, Penelope again ; this was an almost 
 foregone conclusion. Afterward the other officers in 
 turn. Rose Alden was to be secretary; to Estabel s in 
 tense surprise, she heard herself nominated for treasurer, 
 but she hurriedly interposed, and with many blushes 
 begged not to be put into any office, and one of the 
 Arkleys was elected. 
 
 Then came the choosing of a name. There was much 
 spirited discussion, some unparliamentary interruption 
 and confusion of tongues. "The Little Remnant," 
 "The Last Crumbs," were in turn discarded; "The 
 Forlorn Hope " was laughed at, "The Raw Recruits " 
 also. There was getting to be too much joking, and the 
 president rapped to order. 
 
 Then Rose Alden asked how "Snips " would do. 
 "We are n t sizable remnants at all," she said, "but 
 we can come in for patchwork."
 
 120 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Why, that isn t bad," said Marian Arkley. "It a 
 bright ; it has a snap and a meaning to it. May I 
 move ? " 
 
 " A motion is in order ; I think it belongs to Rose, " 
 returned the young president with grave dignity. 
 
 And Rose moved, and Marian seconded; and it was 
 carried by vote that the new auxiliary organization 
 should be entitled "Snips." 
 
 "It was Estabel Charlock who thought of it," Rose 
 told Penelope as they adjourned to cakes and coffee, 
 after certain simple by-laws, drawn up beforehand, had 
 been read and adopted. "She whispered to me just 
 what I said out loud to the meeting. I couldn t make 
 her speak." 
 
 "Don t mention it," answered Penelope wisely. 
 "We know it and that s enough. I don t see why 
 some of the girls are so stiff about her; I think she s 
 nice." 
 
 "It s her aunt. She parades and she pushes. Just 
 see how she dresses ! " 
 
 Mrs. Clymer was rustling across the room in her vio 
 let silk, conspicuously rich, expansive with crinoline, 
 and adorned with finish of Honiton laces. The brooch 
 at her throat and her tremulous eardrops were of ame 
 thyst. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer was always conspicuous; yet if any one 
 had dared hint it to her or suggest a quieter style she 
 would have exclaimed, "Why, how am I different from 
 other people? " The rejoinder might have been, "You 
 always go just a little beyond." It was a pity nobody 
 did tell her. But it would have needed a very incon 
 trovertible authority to convince her. 
 
 She would not have acknowledged it. but she was 
 really nothing to her own consciousness if not conspicu 
 ous. She dressed in italics; underscored the fashion; 
 not only that, but added an exclamation point. She ex 
 ceeded occasion ; she enlarged precedent. Other people
 
 THE REMNANT. 121 
 
 wore this, and that ; why not she ? But her pelerines 
 were broader, her sleeves more highly puffed, her bon 
 net was more erect of crown and flaring of brim, more 
 nodding with plume and contrasting with color, than 
 the other pelerines and sleeves and bonnets. More 
 over, if somebody wore this, and somebody else that, 
 she wore this and that together ; beads, ribbons, flowers, 
 and what not. So with her entertainments. "They 
 all do, " was her motto ; so she did it all, and all the 
 time. Mrs. Westington was right. Overdoing may be 
 ill doing. The false principle extended even to her 
 ethics and her theories of living; what she found in 
 separate or occasional instance she took for countenance 
 to predominant motive and habitual indulgence. She 
 quoted the inch and took the ell. 
 
 It was hardly possible that Estabel and her Aunt 
 Vera good-hearted, generous, kindly mannered, and 
 universally obliging as Aunt Vera was should make 
 their purposes identical or run toward their aims on the 
 same rails. The one wanted to get at the why and the 
 worth while of everything; the other lived absolutely in 
 appearances and plausibilities, and never searched or 
 probed beneath the surface. What was the use of dig 
 ging down, and subsoiling, and turning comfortable con 
 ditions topsy-turvy ? 
 
 As they drove home around Old Park, Mrs. Clymer 
 was full of delight and congratulation. It was such an 
 excellent plan of Mrs. Westington s, and really on 
 purpose to get the young people all together socially. 
 "I told you, Estabel," she said, "that there would be 
 things ready for you if you would only keep yourself in 
 the way of them. You didn t want to come with me 
 this afternoon ; but see what you would have missed. 
 It is everything to be in at the start." 
 
 " I would a great deal rather never go again, " said 
 Estabel. 
 
 "Estabel Charlock! You are absolutely unmanage 
 able ! "
 
 122 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I don t mean to be, Aunt Vera, when you are so 
 kind. I only say I would rather not go again. Of 
 course, I shall go if you want me to." 
 
 "And what does that amount to, if you are deter 
 mined to go hating it in your heart ? " 
 
 "Aunt Vera, you are doing a great deal too much 
 for me, and yet you can t make me into the kind of a 
 girl you want. Don t you think it would be better to 
 send me back to Aunt Esther ? " 
 
 This was confounding. Mrs. Clymer caught her 
 breath before she answered. 
 
 "No, I don t," she said. "What would become of 
 your education ? Are you willing to give that up ? In 
 a few years from now you would be sorry enough on 
 all accounts." 
 
 Estabel was silent. She knew very well that to give 
 up her education would make her sorry. 
 
 "Auntie," she said very gently, "if you would only 
 just educate me, and then, when I am fit for some 
 thing, see what can be done with me ? Maybe I should 
 understand better, by and by. " 
 
 "I believe that s the most sensible thing you have 
 said yet, " returned Aunt Vera. 
 
 She looked at the girl with a fresh scrutiny as she 
 spoke. She remembered her own argument with her 
 husband. Estabel might grow pretty before she was 
 eighteen. And things might go quietly on toward some 
 end which would determine everything. 
 
 She had never yet adverted to what might have 
 seemed a fact greatly to her purpose. She had not 
 mentioned to any one, as introducing Estabel to notice, 
 that she was a grand-niece of that splendid Eleanor 
 Charlock who had taken Topthorpe by storm two gener 
 ations ago. She was wise, with her usual surface wis 
 dom. Why should she invite comparison? It would 
 be better to say nothing of that till Estabel s awkward 
 age should be past, and time should prove what she 
 mi ht come to.
 
 THE REMNANT. 123 
 
 She had once, on her own part, before her marriage, 
 essayed a casual word of the family connection. 
 
 "My sister s husband " she had begun to say when 
 some old story of the aunt s triumphs was being re 
 hearsed in her presence ; but before she had declared 
 the relationship, an elderly lady, who had been a 
 beauty in her own way in the next succeeding time to 
 that in which Eleanor Charlock had eclipsed not only 
 her contemporaries, but those who might come for a 
 good while after, had observed, " Oh, yes ; I remem 
 ber her when I was a little girl. She was handsome; 
 but she really wasn t anybody in particular, otherwise. 
 She just happened. And Topthorpe society was small 
 then. It wasn t a case likely ever to occur again." 
 
 And Mrs. Clymer had laid that saying up. Every 
 body would not speak just so ; there had been, at any 
 rate, all the Henslee prestige added. But it would be 
 as well not to throw away too early in the hand a card 
 that would have its value later.
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 "SNIPS." 
 
 MRS. CLYMER settled it in her own mind that there 
 was to be a waiting time. As to the persistent and 
 anxious following up of a single, difficult purpose, this 
 was a relief. But Mrs. Clymer never did really wait. 
 It Avas her nature to abhor a vacuum. The meanwhile 
 with her must be filled with something; if not the best, 
 then the best that she could get. This necessity was 
 upon her, not only in regard to Estabel, but as to the 
 intervals between one decided step and another in her 
 own social career. 
 
 She had not been unimpressed by Estabel s early sug 
 gestion illustrated by the finding of latitude and longi 
 tude, and being content to abide in one s own. She 
 was not a person to go on sacrificing immediate ease 
 and pleasure to a remote and uncertain aim ; the bird 
 in the hand, in short, to the bird in the bush. The aim 
 must be a noble one, enlisting a noble constancy of na 
 ture, the bird must be singing such a beautiful promise 
 that to come even near the bush or beneath the inac 
 cessible tree and listen to and interpret its wonderful 
 message will be better than to hold fluttering in one s 
 fingers a tamer, commoner thing, to induce such sacri 
 fice and sustain such constancy. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had neither the aim nor the nature. 
 She was eminently of a disposition to lose nothing as 
 she went along. She was forty years old. She was 
 not going to put off till fifty the beginning to live. She 
 had the price of life in her hand and its equipment
 
 "SNIPS." 125 
 
 about her. With her money, and her fine house, and 
 her fine clothes, and her carriage, she could be in full 
 evidence to herself, and to a certain world of others 
 like herself, as a woman lacking no outward sign. 
 There were plenty glad to enjoy with her what she 
 could offer, to admire and be astonished, as the serene 
 manner-born would never do. She could have hosts of 
 friends if she would take them ; she could come and go 
 in splendor. 
 
 What difference was there between her and those of 
 merely longer date in the same things, wearing their 
 old grandeur in a proud simplicity ? Maybe she would 
 be simple by and by when she had demonstrated that 
 she could be gorgeous. Mr. Clymer was wont to boast 
 to her, realizing the convenience of an alter ego to make 
 his boast to, that he could buy out any half dozen of 
 the cofferdam circle. And if with that assurance be 
 hind her position Mrs. Clymer could not hold herself 
 assured, where were anybody s credentials to anything? 
 
 So when Mr. Clymer gave the social inch, she began 
 with alacrity to run off the ell. He had admitted that 
 to get to the dome of the State House you may as well 
 go up the stairs. And doing so, you need not hurry 
 yourself out of breath to reach the top. You may even 
 sit down halfway up and rest. 
 
 Her visiting list grew longer and more mixed. Here 
 also was the same old logic. If Mrs. Blank knew Mrs. 
 Dash she might cultivate the former lady. And if she 
 might know Mrs. Blank the line need not be severely 
 drawn between her and her relatives, Mrs. Ditto and 
 Miss Anne Soforth. In the same way that she reached 
 up, why might she not reach down and along? Things 
 that are equal to the same are equal to one another. 
 Anchored to this axiom she swung out OH a long cable. 
 
 She drove about merrily everywhere and had a de 
 lightful time. Whatever went on that was generally or 
 readily accessible, she was at the front or in the midst
 
 126 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 of, church socials, charitable fairs, amateur theatricals, 
 concerts, public celebrations or exhibitions, lectures, wed 
 dings, funerals. Clubs were not as yet. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer was in every crowd, and all the crowd 
 knew who she was. She nodded and smiled and how- 
 d ye-doed. She remembered everybody and everybody 
 had to remember her. She appeared to her own wide 
 circle for she certainly had a circle to be making 
 a grand success. 
 
 She enlarged her charities ; she belonged not only 
 to the Remnant, but to the Dorcas, and to the Five 
 Loaves, and to the Two Fishes ; all the elementary 
 associations which nowadays, like trusts in trade and 
 developments of discovery and invention, are grandly 
 consolidated and moved by immense central dynamic 
 power. In this way she had entrance by a score of 
 penetrating lines within the touching and intersecting 
 circumferences before adverted to. Every centre has 
 its radii. And any radius may be followed inward. 
 
 If Mr. Clymer ever secretly objected to this wide 
 illustration of his principle and all that the erratic 
 sweep of his wife s orbit involved, he left off making 
 any hindrance. He gave her line and time, as she had 
 made up her mind to give to Estabel. The longest way 
 round may still be the shortest way home. 
 
 For the rest, nobody seems to have found out why it 
 not seldom happens that a shallow-brained, superficial 
 woman takes practical rule in a household, even against 
 a man s preconceived idea and full intent, while the 
 man, with his purpose and conviction, stands aside and 
 makes way for her. It is because a household is a con 
 struction. And the law of construction is that the 
 strength of the whole is only as the strength of the 
 weakest part. That is the entire solution. And it is 
 the most conclusive argument for the higher education 
 and development of women; the term "higher," how 
 ever, being most carefully and discriminately defined.
 
 " SNIPS." 127 
 
 The result, at any rate, of the present order of things 
 in our story was that, as with the old Israelites between 
 their alternate salvations and declensions in the times 
 of their Judges, "there was peace in the land for" 
 well, all through the remainder of that school and so 
 ciety year, at least. 
 
 The peace might have been broken if Mrs. Clymer 
 had known what Estabel had done in proud, provoked 
 defiance one afternoon at the "Snips." With her own 
 careful withholding of her queen of hearts till she might 
 play it, with its following, as if hearts had been trumps, 
 she would have been dismayed at Estabel s flinging 
 down, in open challenge to king and ace, her humbly but 
 securely guarded queen of spades. 
 
 It was a rarely summerlike afternoon in May. The 
 trees in the Long Mall were tipped with their fresh, 
 tender greenery; the lilacs in the gardens were all 
 aplume in white and purple, and their scent, with the 
 rich sweet of the daffodils and the ineffable pure breath 
 of violets, floated out from dooryard and inclosure. 
 Outer wraps were cast aside, if only for the day. 
 
 Estabel walked up the bricked sideway under the 
 elms that stretched out over the fence from the Park 
 border. To walk within was already getting to be the 
 privilege only of nursemaids and children ; so the great, 
 wise trees, Estabel thought, knowing how many child 
 like hearts were kept outside, reached forth their un 
 stinted benediction. She wondered why there should 
 be so many things that, as soon as they become really 
 beautiful to do, are done with. 
 
 She wore a pretty, small-checked silk dress of brown 
 and white, fresh and glistening. A round cape of the 
 same, ruffled, fitted close about her shoulders, and just 
 touched its frilled edge to the waist line. Her straw 
 bonnet, lined and crossed with blue, had a full blue 
 bow tied over the top, between brim and crown. An 
 other, smaller, matched it, fastening under the chin
 
 128 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 where the pretty circle met that framed her face. In 
 side, against her hair, were little white, starlike flowers. 
 Estabel had had her way about this new spring costume. 
 From what she saw others wear she had learned to choose 
 and adapt for herself, and she found that to say The 
 girls wear this and that " insured her preferences. 
 
 A dainty, restrained sense of the beautiful time, the 
 sweetness, the delight of air and bloom and sunshine, 
 responding to all, possessed her. It was the joy, highly 
 refined and limited by its refinement, of spring and of 
 young life. If she had been in Stillwick she would 
 have been out in the woods in a common print gown, 
 free to run, to jump the brook, to sing, to fill her hands 
 with early blossoms and her heart with unrestrained 
 ecstasy. Here she was only going quietly up the pave 
 ment of a city street, where from numberless windows 
 her every movement might be seen, to sit properly in 
 a parlor with other young, well-trained maidens, and 
 sew patchwork or make a little apron. There was a 
 meeting of the "Snips" with the Remnant" at Mrs. 
 Alden s. Estabel did not so much mind going there, 
 although she was alone this time. For once Mrs. 
 Clymer had to miss a meeting ; she was at home in a 
 dark room with a nervous headache ; but had insisted, 
 nevertheless, upon Estabel s attending without her. 
 
 Estabel slipped in almost unobserved perhaps more 
 comfortably, after all, than if Aunt Vera s sounding 
 robes and assertive movement had led the way, and 
 found a seat in the back drawing-room with Rose Alden 
 and the Goodwins and Pen AVestington and Margaret 
 Lewis, who was Pen Westington s cousin. They were 
 together in the recess of a large window looking out, 
 first into a balcony, over that into a garden, and beyond 
 into the hushed seclusion of an old city graveyard, 
 where the birds twittered, and lichen-crusted stones 
 leaned as with some mysterious, silent fellowship to 
 ward each other.
 
 "SNIPS." 129 
 
 The window was open ; potted plants in bloom made a 
 hanging garden of the balcony, and a bed of violets below, 
 and white and yellow crocuses among the grass, sent up 
 their smiles and sweetness. A second window was occu 
 pied by Cora Chilstone and her special little coterie. 
 There was animated talk in each little group, and occa 
 sionally a word and a laugh were exchanged across. 
 
 "Oh, isn t it a lovely day? " exclaimed Rose Alden, 
 lifting up her head and taking in a long, ecstatic 
 breath. "Isn t it hard to sit still when nothing else 
 keeps still, but is just growing and blooming as hard as 
 it can ? " 
 
 "If you could see the woods at Stillwick to-day! " 
 responded Estabel, the keen feeling of all that outside 
 freedom and sweetness taking fresh hold upon her at 
 the word. "The rocks will be red with columbines, 
 and there will be great blue patches of wild violets, and 
 clouds of anemones! Down by the brook there is no 
 end of them." 
 
 "It must be beautiful," answered Pen Westington. 
 "I ve never been in the country so early in the spring. 
 But I feel just like Rose, wild to be off everywhere, 
 along with the wind and the sunshine." 
 
 "Living in the country is like being part of it, 
 wind and sunshine and brook and flowers and birds and 
 all. Here everything is measured out and railed in and 
 portioned round. The milkman brings the milk in cans 
 in a cart, and that s all we know about it." 
 
 "What have the milkman and the milk to do with it, 
 I wonder ? " came in a kind of sotto voce from the 
 opposite recess. 
 
 It occurred to Pen Westington that now was a very 
 good time to mention something that had been told her. 
 "You knew Harry Henslee down in Stillwick, I be 
 lieve ? " she said. 
 
 "Oh, yes; very well," replied Estabel, and added 
 nothing.
 
 130 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "He stays therewith his grandfather, doesn t he? 
 He said you were a good deal there, too, with your 
 aunt. Was it Mrs. Clymer ? " 
 
 "No. My other aunt." 
 
 "She lives in Stillwick? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "I suppose you had a lovely home there? " 
 
 "I thought it was nice." 
 
 "Is your aunt s place near the Henslees ? " 
 
 "Not very. And it isn t a place, at all. She 
 lives in the village." 
 
 Over at the other window a smile and glance went 
 round. 
 
 "Oh! She must miss you. But I suppose the vil 
 lage isn t lonesome," said Rose Alden. Penelope had 
 been silenced for an instant by what she had drawn 
 forth, as if she had somehow pulled a wrong thread and 
 things had raveled. She almost wished she had let 
 well alone. Rose Alden would not let the silence fall 
 suddenly, like a quenching. 
 
 Estabel had no notion of letting silence either shield 
 or slur. "No," she said. "It is not exactly lone 
 some. And Aunt Esther is a very busy woman." In 
 very perversity, now, she was courting a disclosure. 
 
 "Busy?" 
 
 "Yes. She keeps a millinery shop and a library." 
 
 A laugh broke forth from the Chilstone corner. 
 
 Penelope got up, with her very tallest dignity, and 
 walked first to the centre table, where the materials for 
 work were assorted. She took up a pair of little calico 
 sleeves and carried them over to Marian Arkley, who 
 sat beside Corinna. 
 
 " I think you must be nearly ready for these, " she 
 said to her. "They are to be set with the seam to the 
 notch in the armhole. Corinna Chilstone, I m ashamed 
 of you! " she whispered severely in the other s ear. 
 
 "Are you? " Corinna drawled, not whispering.
 
 SNIPS." 131 
 
 "You el better be ashamed of yourself with your cate 
 chising. See where it s landed you, in Aunt Esther s 
 millinery shop ! " 
 
 Rose Alden was chattering with all her might. 
 Penelope dropped her heavy cutting scissors and pushed 
 a chair aside to pick them up. She hoped the rude 
 taunt had not been heard. Her head was lifted higher 
 yet, and there was an indignant color in her face as she 
 walked away. 
 
 Afterward-, telling her mother about it, she said im 
 petuously, "I wish I needn t know Corinna Chilstone 
 at all ! " 
 
 "You can t quite put people out of society, my dear. 
 There is too much interlinking and interweaving. It s 
 like a silk web; if one stitch is dropped it ravels a 
 great many. Corinna will outgrow some of this imper 
 tinence. In the meantime choose your intimates." 
 
 "Mamma," said Penelope after a puzzled pause, 
 "don t you think good society is dreadfully mixed? " 
 
 And at this Mrs. Westington had to laugh. 
 
 Corinna had also her story to tell at home. And she 
 ended with, "Penelope Westington doesn t keep to her 
 own set, at all. She is awfully independent. It is n t 
 really safe to be with her. She 11 get left out herself 
 if she doesn t take care." 
 
 Mrs. Chilstone s sister, who was not a professional 
 society woman, was taking tea with them. "I like 
 Penelope Westington," she said. "She is always lady 
 like, and her manners are so cordial." 
 
 " Too cordial." Mrs. Chilstone clinched the matter 
 and the moral for her daughter with those two emphatic 
 words.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 THE THEATRE. 
 
 THE Trepeake Theatre was crowded. 
 
 It was a family night, a benefit for a young Top- 
 thorpe favorite, and the selections were made to attract 
 fittingly the young as well as their elders. 
 
 At school that morning, everybody was "going;" 
 that is, everybody who spoke at all. Those who could 
 not say that said wisely nothing. 
 
 The plays were the musical rendering of " Cinderella " 
 and the dramatized "Cricket on the Hearth." The 
 same young actress took the parts of Cinderella in the 
 first, and of the personified "Cricket," with song and 
 dance, in the second. 
 
 In those days there was no need of managers law for 
 the removal of bonnets. Nobody wore a bonnet at all. 
 Heads were "dressed; " ladies came in carriages; there 
 were no street cars no crowds of people from near 
 and far, requiring troublesome head cover on the way. 
 
 The boxes were brilliant. The "pit " was filled by 
 men only, who looked upward and around to the resplen 
 dent circles, where sat, as it were, the angels of heaven. 
 
 Mr. Clymer had taken a box in the first tier, di 
 rectly fronting the stage. Mrs. Clymer had invited 
 Mrs. Lewis and her eldest daughter; Estabel had been 
 permitted to ask the Goodwins ; Dr. North was to look 
 in as his time might allow, and there was room for a 
 chance friend to come and join them if it so happened. 
 Mrs. Clymer had learned that it was well to appear 
 with a party, and in control.
 
 THE THEATRE. 133 
 
 A fashionable hairdresser had come to Mount Street 
 at five o clock. Mrs. Clymer and Estabel displayed the 
 results of his art, the former in an elaborate coiffure of 
 plaits and puffs behind and large curls drawn back in 
 clusters about her ears, above which small marabout 
 feathers nodded. A bronze satin dress with Marie 
 Antoinette cape of costly lace, open sleeves with under- 
 draperies of the same soft, delicate fabric, and a white 
 Canton crape shawl, negligently falling around her, com 
 pleted her toilet. Estabel had on a blue silk frock with 
 swansdown borderings ; and her hair was let loose from 
 the schoolgirl braids and made into a cataract of curls, 
 tied back with a blue ribbon knotted over the temple. 
 The fair, soft tint of her locks, gleaming in their liber 
 ated curves, was really lovely in the gaslight. 
 
 Estabel looked nearly, if not quite, pretty to-night. 
 I don t know that I need qualify the statement. She 
 was pretty. She had becoming color about her; her 
 bright young face was lighted both by beautifying out 
 ward illumination and that of the inner joyous radiancy 
 to which it was so ingenuously transparent. 
 
 The Goodwins were nice, refined, daintily and mod 
 estly attired ; Margaret Lewis was beautiful ; her mother 
 stately in quiet simplicity. Mrs. Clymer was satisfied 
 with her party. 
 
 The Westingtons were in the next box ; Penelope 
 spoke to Estabel across the partition. A little way off 
 sat the Aldens with a company of friends ; Mrs. Clymer 
 and Mrs. Alden exchanged polite bows and the girls gay 
 nods and smiles. Only a little farther yet were the Chil- 
 stones and the Redpolls ; what matter that they did not 
 see nor bow? Mrs. Clymer was in the midst; the whole 
 audience was fashionable ; she was a fact in Topthorpe 
 as much as any of the flashy, intimate set alongside 
 which she drifted. They were only the light, pretentious 
 order, after all ; there are spheres and spheres ; who was 
 to know where she touched most familiarly, and how far ?
 
 134 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 After the play began Estabel was absorbed. She 
 was no longer of the audience, far less a conscious per 
 sonality in herself. She was within the story yes, 
 the story even within the story. Fairyland was be 
 hind the outside tale ; behind the loneliness and the 
 unkindness; behind, above, beyond, and yet just close 
 beside the kitchen chimney and the cindery hearth. 
 The girl in the dull brown gown had links with the 
 hiddenly beautiful, the supernatural. When she was 
 left all alone the Queen Godmother came. The secret 
 of a sweet, patient life was some sure glory. 
 
 The drop scene fell. The act was over. Cinderella 
 had gone, in her golden coach, in her glittering dress, 
 in her magical glass slippers, to the royal ball. The 
 brown gown had parted from her shoulders like an open 
 ing chrysalis, and its shriveling folds had been wafted 
 away and had disappeared like wind-driven dead leaves. 
 Beautiful music sounded from the orchestra. Upon its 
 delicious strains Estabel s fancy floated on, and fol 
 lowed into a splendid triumph. 
 
 She did not look around. She did not even know 
 that she was leaning forward, gazing toward the cur 
 tained stage in the unmoved attitude in which she had 
 watched and listened. 
 
 Her Aunt Vera looked around, and noticed. She 
 saw that Harry Henslee had come into the Chilstones 
 box and was seated beside Corinna. The two glanced 
 over at Estabel. Corinna said something, with a laugh; 
 then she began talking as if describing something. 
 Harry s eyes, as he listened, remained fixed toward 
 this centre box. Suddenly he turned full upon his com 
 panion and answered quickly. Corinna s countenance 
 changed ; the scornful smile, so habitual to it, dropped 
 away from the features, leaving its downfallen impress 
 a blank surprise. In a few minutes Harry Henslee got 
 up and took leave with a bow. In a moment more their 
 own box door opened and he came in.
 
 THE THEATRE. 135 
 
 There was room behind Estabel, at the end of the 
 second row. He took the seat, after a word with Mrs. 
 Clymer, and leaned over into Estabel s abstraction, from 
 which he called her back by the sudden speaking of her 
 name. 
 
 "Oh, Harry! Isn t it beautiful? " she exclaimed to 
 him. 
 
 "Yes. But it isn t there just now. Had n t you 
 better come back among other people ? " 
 
 "I was so glad for Cinderella! " 
 
 "Why, you knew it all before, didn t you? " 
 
 "Oh, of course. But so many old things seem new, 
 when you really see them." 
 
 "There s more coming. Those old catamarans will 
 get their reckoning- ups. Wait till you see them paring 
 off their toes and heels to get into Cinderella s slip 
 pers ! " 
 
 "I don t believe I care so very much for that." 
 
 " What is it you care for ? " 
 
 "Why, what Cinderella had all along, that they 
 never knew anything about what all the real gran 
 deur came from. Their little grandeur was n t any 
 thing, you see. It wouldn t have been, even if they d 
 mawied the prince." 
 
 "Both of them? " Harry laughed. 
 
 "Oh, you know what I mean. If they d had the 
 whole kingdom. Cinderella and her godmother had a 
 better one. It s the inside of the story I like." 
 
 Estabel had two auditors. Dr. North had come in 
 and had taken his stand beside Harry, who did not no 
 tice. Estabel was talking with Harry over her other 
 shoulder, and did not see the doctor at all. 
 
 "Don t you care for outsides? " asked Harry. 
 
 "Why, yes, ever so much, when they mean insides." 
 
 "That s a riddle. Estabel, whatever made you tell 
 those girls that Cousin Esther was a village milliner ? " 
 
 " Why not ? They were asking me questions about
 
 136 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Stilhvick, and whom I lived with there, and whether 
 Aunt Esther had a place like Henslee, and I just 
 answered." 
 
 "You need not have explained particulars. They 
 would n t understand, and it was none of their busi 
 ness." 
 
 "It is Aunt Esther s, and I m not ashamed of it." 
 
 Estabel s head was up, and her color, in the way she 
 had when roused. 
 
 "Well, I explained more," said Harry Henslee. "I 
 thought if you had begun at that end it let me off from 
 not beginning at the other. So I told them you were 
 a grandniece of my grandmother, Mrs. Colonel Henslee. 
 An old lady over there that one with the turban cap 
 - pricked up her ears. Eleanor Charlock! she said. 
 1 Why, I knew her. She was in society when I was 
 very young. Oh, what a beauty she was ! And how 
 the whole town went crazy after her ! And that s a 
 Charlock? Didn t you see the opera glasses all turned 
 this way ? " 
 
 "No, indeed. I wasn t looking. I wasn t looking 
 anywhere, I think; only where I couldn t really see 
 after Cinderella." 
 
 "Well, I shouldn t wonder if Cinderella should be 
 looked after after this." 
 
 "Hush! The curtain s going up." 
 
 She did not apparently take the trouble to interpret 
 his meaning. 
 
 Harry Henslee went away and joined his father in 
 the orchestra seats. 
 
 Ulick North seated himself in the place the boy left, 
 behind Estabel. He did not interrupt the girl. She 
 was absorbed in the play again. But he sat and thought 
 things over about this other Cinderella. 
 
 What might grow up between those two ? What 
 would this girl come to, with the two sides of her 
 the one so impressible to outward things, to the world
 
 THE THEATRE. 137 
 
 as she found it, the other so contemptuous of all that 
 did not reach down, through, or in, to that she called 
 "inside " ? 
 
 She might so easily be deluded by an apparent har 
 mony; had he not been deluded so himself? She 
 might, as he haxl done, translate mistakenly; might 
 think she found a reality where there was only thin 
 semblance. Or, indeed, the true in herself might 
 weaken in discouragement ; might find nothing to an 
 swer directly to it, and content itself with indirections ; 
 be forced to take life on the surface, since it would not 
 yield to her its depths. This surface world might yet 
 become very kind to her; she might succeed to her in 
 heritance in its interest and indulgence. How would 
 it seem to her then, offering her its smiles and sunshine ? 
 How long would this outright honesty of hers, this 
 stringent demand of the real and best, hold out? She 
 was not yet seventeen. What would the next coming 
 years do with her? 
 
 And how deep, after all, in herself, did this inward 
 reality lie, by which she was now testing the world in 
 its first, fragmentary relations to her? Was it any 
 thing more than a fairyland an inside of fancy and 
 romance, just as unsubstantial, as sure to fail her when 
 she would take vital hold of it, as the other dreams 
 and wishes, of beauty and place and comradeship, that 
 allured and eluded her now ? She was only a child ; 
 she knew neither herself nor life. Everybody was once 
 a child, but what has come of all that childhood? 
 
 He, Ulick North, was a man of fact. He cherished 
 no illusions. He could not rest in the intangible. 
 Deed, not dream, character, not aspiration, were his 
 demand. No theory held him until demonstrated by 
 experiment. He had had eleven more years of life 
 than Estabel, and the years had not, he thought, been 
 good to him. He supposed himself done with expecting 
 much of good. His business was to fight evil; that
 
 138 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 seemed to be what men were put into mortal circum 
 stance for, if, indeed, they were put at all, and things did 
 not just happen into circumstance. He was to antago 
 nize pain and disease, to lessen misery and hardness as 
 far as he could, in the little space of his own environ 
 ment. If it had been a good, whole world, with a 
 healthy, true inside to it, what need of doctors, or 
 administers of justice, or preachers of a religion that 
 should be inherent life, humanity s very heart-beat ? 
 Did not supplement and alleviation confess essential 
 failure ? What more could a man undertake to do than 
 to fight? What was to come of the struggle at last 
 a saving or an annihilating was not the affair of any 
 man. He, surely, Ulick North, could have nothing to 
 do with it. 
 
 But here was something come within his environment. 
 Could he help this little girl ? Might she, with her 
 clear intuitions, her generous sincerity, which he began 
 to concede in his judgment of her, so be sheltered, 
 guided, strengthened, as to shake off girlish foible and 
 the contagion of surrounding, as to come forth a woman 
 of his highest imaging, a woman such as ought to be, 
 such as he thought once he had found, only to have 
 his belief so betrayed that love and belief had perished 
 together ? 
 
 Why was he caring ? What could it possibly be to 
 him? 
 
 It was a case a question. It was something to 
 watch, like a process in a laboratory ; that was all. 
 
 When the plays were over, Dr. North put Estabel s 
 cloak about her shoulders, and accompanied her and her 
 companions to their carriage. 
 
 There were two in waiting for the party, Mrs. 
 Clymer s and one from the livery. The three young 
 girls were put into this last, and Mrs. Clymer asked 
 the doctor if he would be kind enough to accompany 
 them to their two destinations.
 
 THE THEATRE. 139 
 
 Estabel gave the back seat to her guests and sat in 
 the front with Ulick. He asked her if she were warm, 
 and drew her cloak more closely about her. The spring 
 wind was keen; there was Labrador ice in it. 
 
 "Was the play nice?" he asked her; and although 
 three young voices broke forth together in delighted 
 answer, she thought he meant the question especially 
 for her, and that he was especially kind to her to-night. 
 
 They had to drive round to Hemlock Street, on the 
 other side of the hill, to leave Kitty and Helen, who 
 bade good- by with eager thanks. Then the carriage 
 door was shut and Estabel was alone with Dr. North. 
 He made her take the back seat, but kept his own. 
 He leaned toward her presently, asking again with a 
 slight difference, " You liked it ? And which play was 
 the best ? " 
 
 "I don t know," Estabel answered with some care 
 fulness. "Both together, they were beautiful. It 
 seemed as if one just finished the other. I liked the 
 kettle, and the Cricket, singing all along and keeping 
 the secret. And Tilly Slowboy, finding out things and 
 talking them over with the baby, as if they two were 
 the only ones who could understand. And did its hair 
 grow brown and curly when its cap was lifted off and 
 frighten it a precious pets a sittin by the fires ? Oh, 
 that was lovely ! " 
 
 Estabel laughed; but there was a little catch of pa 
 thos with the fun, as there is in Dickens. 
 
 Dr. North sat silent, which was not exactly his way 
 if he had had enough of any special sort of talk. A 
 smothered little sniff would escape him in such case, 
 or he would start some utterly inconsequent topic ; the 
 more insignificant in proportion that his interlocutor 
 seemed more in earnest and likely to keep on. To-night 
 he let Estabel keep on and listened leniently. 
 
 "And the Blind Girl, who really saw so much," she 
 said, "and was n t cheated after all, because the beautiful
 
 140 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 things she had believed in were all in her old father s 
 heart for her and real ! I think the theatre shows things 
 all clear through, don t you? " Estabel was still carried 
 away from herself; she was still gazing through the 
 fallen curtain into yet unvanished scenes, or she would 
 hardly have uttered herself so unreservedly to impassive 
 Dr. North. 
 
 Perhaps," he answered her. "If one looks clear 
 through. " 
 
 The words startled Estabel just a little. It was so 
 strange, she remembered, recalled from her self-aban 
 donment by their uncontradictory tone, for him to meet 
 any sentiment or opinion on lines of similar feeling or 
 understanding. How good he was to-night not to spoil 
 or argue away her pleasure ! 
 
 And then, after a little silence, the carriage stopped 
 at Number 84. 
 
 Sara Sullivant came into Estabel s room to help her 
 undress and put her things away. Her help, which 
 would never leave things scattered over night, or any 
 way out of order, was doing more toward making Es 
 tabel orderly than any reprimand or penalty had ever 
 done. It appealed directly to the sense of fitness and 
 fidelity in herself. It identified these with her feeling 
 of beauty; they were becoming a like and inseparable 
 necessity to her. Sara was the embodiment of thor 
 oughness and precision. Estabel had said to her once, 
 "Sara, you 11 never die of any disorder. You couldn t 
 have one. You 11 just wear out in an eternal grind of 
 regularity. " 
 
 While Sara smoothed and folded and hung up, she 
 asked questions. And Estabel poured out to her the 
 whole story of each play, with graphic descriptions of 
 effects and occasional dramatic illustration. 
 
 "But I want to know about you," Sara said at last. 
 "What kind of a time did you have between times, 
 and off the stage? People don t go to the theatre only
 
 THE THEATRE. 141 
 
 just for the performance. Who was there ? Who did 
 you speak to ? " 
 
 "Oh, there were ever so many people there we knew. 
 At least, some we know, and more we only smatter at. 
 And it was all very bright and splendid. Nearly all 
 the girls I ever saw in Topthorpe were there. Harry 
 Henslee came and sat with us between the acts. And 
 Dr. North rode home with the Goodwins and me." 
 
 "Dr. North can be polite when there s nothing 
 else to do. But did he say anything? I d like to see 
 how Dr. Ulick would behave shut up in a carriage with 
 three girls." 
 
 "Oh, he was very kind and pleasant. He asked me 
 how I liked the plays, and which I thought was the 
 best. He seemed to like to hear what I thought about 
 them." 
 
 " Did he tell you anything he thought ? " 
 
 "Not much. He just said half a dozen words. But 
 he didn t dispute." 
 
 "H m! Six words from Dr. Ulick North if they 
 ain t disputin an sometimes if they air is more than 
 a whole chapter of Numbers from some folks. He 
 don t trouble himself to say six words, unless there s six 
 words worth of something to say, or of somebody to say 
 to. And he can t bear women an so, not girls 
 generally. They do tell he s had enough of em." 
 
 " I like to please people who are hard to please 
 if they re real," said Estabel. "Dr. North s real 
 enough, and you have to be real with him." 
 
 "Yes. He s that. And I think he s as pleased 
 with you, sometimes, as he s capable. That ain t 
 much. But he puts up with you. An maybe by the 
 time you re full grown up, he 11 get so he can put up 
 with your bein a woman. There was a man once car 
 ried a calf till it grew to be a ox." 
 
 At that Estabel laughed and jumped into bed. Sara 
 bade her good-night, and went away.
 
 142 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 For a long time she lay awake, living over the excite 
 ment which would not let her sleep, and considering 
 those six words of Dr. Ulick. 
 
 "I think he looks clear through most things," she 
 said to herself. "That s what makes him a good doc 
 tor. Uncle Abel says he s great on diagnosis. 
 And that s why, I suppose, he s hard to please. I 
 should be proud to grow up into a woman that Dr. 
 Ulick couldn t help liking." 
 
 The next day she wrote a long letter to Aunt Esther, 
 describing her theatre evening all over again. And she 
 put that last waking thought of hers about Dr. Ulick 
 at the end of it. 
 
 Aunt Esther s answer came inclosed with a short 
 business note to Mrs. Clymer. This was all there was 
 in it : 
 
 DEAR ESTABEL, I m glad you had a good time, 
 and thank you for telling me about it. But as to see 
 ing clear through anybody or anything, and as to Dr. 
 Ulick North Chooty-choo ! 
 
 Your affectionate aunt, 
 
 ESTHER CHARLOCK.
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 BY THE RIVER. 
 
 THE River Shawme pours its widening waters round 
 the westerly end of Topthorpe. Parallel streets, of 
 which Mount Street is one, run down to it. North 
 erly, the great bridges cross. Round from the seaward 
 wharves on the east shore line, through the broad estu 
 ary up which rushes the salt tide that spreads out upon 
 the marshes, come the lumber barges, or did come at 
 the time of which we tell. 
 
 There were woody ards and carpenters shops, and 
 coal and lime wharves, on Shawme Street water- side. 
 Right opposite the foot of Mount Street lay one of the 
 lumber-yards. Its piles of new boards breathed out 
 their memories of the pine woods in the June sunshine, 
 as there is drawn from human spirits in some sweetly 
 searching way the secret of an older life that stirs 
 vaguely in them and exhales a mystic incense. 
 
 Estabel had never, until a certain morning in this 
 June, walked all the way down Mount Street. The 
 northwest winds of winter were too fierce across the 
 wide water space, and up the exposed ascent. Her plea 
 sure walks led elsewhere, and she had no errand down 
 so far as Shawme Street. 
 
 But this morning she could not stay indoors, nor 
 within any usual bounds. She wanted something new 
 of all the new summer plenty and glory that were burst 
 ing and shining over the world. The great river in 
 vited her, gleaming radiant in the full light, the blue 
 tips of its small innumerable waves breaking in golden
 
 144 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 sparkles to the electric touch of the warm, live day, its 
 ample flood sweeping hroad from shore to shore, be 
 tween streets and wharves on the hither margin and the 
 soft stretches and rising slopes of a green countryside 
 beyond. 
 
 As she went down the bricked sidewalk, Estabel s 
 feet kept dancing measure with the tossing ripple of 
 the stream upon which her eyes were held enchanted. 
 She forgot the bricks ; she forgot the overlooking and 
 inclosing walls ; she left the whole great city behind 
 her; it rolled back from under her elastic steps. She 
 emerged into a great freedom, a wonderful joy. Out 
 there was the real, beautiful, wide world. There was 
 a Te Deum going up from it. The sunlight flashed 
 the words; the summer s wind sang them; the little 
 waves sprang up gladly in their places, and lisped 
 the antiphon : " We give thanks to Thee for Thy great 
 glory ! " 
 
 In Estabel s heart there was a full tide of tender 
 pleasure. 
 
 She crossed Shawme Street straight to the pier. An 
 arched boarding over a gateway where the trucks went 
 in and out had painted on it "R. Thistlestoke, Lum 
 ber, Wood, and Lime." 
 
 How sweet and clean it smelled here, with the hewn- 
 down yet still living forest growths, the freshness of 
 the river, and the grass scents drifted from opposite 
 meadows ! 
 
 She walked slowly down between the stacks of 
 boards. She passed a little building upon which a 
 lesser sign announced "R. Thistlestoke, Office." A 
 middle-aged man, almost elderly, with gray in his hair 
 and spectacles upon his nose, sat writing at a desk be 
 side a window, and glanced out over his glasses. Es- 
 tabel wondered if this was R. Thistlestoke, and what 
 he would think of her coming down there. But the 
 spell was too strong upon her for any hesitating or turn-
 
 BY THE RIVER. 145 
 
 ing back ; probably R. Thistlestoke felt the shining of 
 the morning also, and understood. 
 
 She went on, undisturbed, to the very end of the 
 water wall ; there she sat down on a clean, projecting 
 plank, sheltered by the huge pile from which it conven 
 iently protruded, and found herself alone, face to face 
 with the river and the sky. 
 
 Poem and psalm drifted through her memory. She 
 seemed to listen to them as she looked out upon the 
 beauty and caught the softness of the sounds of breeze 
 and wave, the plash at her feet of the still rising tide, 
 and a far hum of busy city streets, so nearly hushed 
 that it was not discordant. 
 
 " The Shawme ! The Shawme ! Our own imperial 
 river! " appropriated itself from Mrs. Hemans s exulting 
 Rhine song; and with the name came suggestion of the 
 grand lines of the "Cantate Domino." 
 " With trumpets also and shawms, 
 O show yourselves joyful before the Lord, the king ! 
 Let the sea make a noise, and all that therein is : 
 The round world, and they that dwell therein. 
 For He cometh to judge the earth : 
 With righteousness shall he judge the world, 
 And the people with equity." 
 
 Every Sunday afternoon she heard this sung in 
 church ; now she felt it in the great psalm of nature, 
 from which it was first drawn, and a strain of which 
 reached even here, along beside the busy, common city 
 street. 
 
 "Why did I never come here before?" she asked 
 herself. "And why aren t half the Mount Street peo 
 ple down here to enjoy this morning? They just don t 
 know. They are among the shops, plenty of them. 
 The silks and ribbons in the windows are prettier to 
 them than this blue roll of water, and that great cur 
 tain of blue sky, and the green velvet border of those 
 fields. The earth and the world are two such different
 
 146 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 things ! And yet, that verse says, He cometh to 
 judge with righteousness, and with equity. To 
 make things even and right ; I wonder if they really 
 think it, Sundays, when they sing that psalm ! " 
 
 Sitting quiet by the riverside, Estabel was launching 
 forth upon deep waters. Deep always calls to deep. 
 
 She had sat there some half hour when the great bell 
 of the church near by boomed out eleven strokes. Her 
 aunt might miss her, though in this vacation time, but 
 just begun, she had new privilege. 
 
 She rose to go, but stood lingering for a moment for 
 a last look, a last breath. She had had the best of the 
 morning. The cool shadow of the sheltering wood 
 wall behind her was creeping to her feet. The sun 
 was climbing high, and the blaze was already hot. 
 
 As she turned to go back the way she had come, a 
 movement and a sound caused her to look around. 
 From the farther side of a similar lumber pile to that 
 which had served her own quiet comfort, a young girl, 
 using a crutch, came into the aisle-like passage between, 
 which Estabel was following. 
 
 The latter paused. Some one else had found the 
 lovely place, had been sharing her own delight. Why 
 might she not say how glad it was ? This would not 
 be like "speaking to strange girls on the street." They 
 two had had it all together. Wasn t it an acquaint 
 ance knowing the same real, perfect thing ? 
 
 And this was no Corinna Chilstone. 
 
 "What a beautiful face!" she almost exclaimed. 
 But she only said brightly, "Good-morning! " 
 
 A flashing smile answered her as the girl came up. 
 
 "Isn t it a good morning!" she returned; and a 
 pair of glorious eyes, under sunny brows and lashes, 
 lightened with almost a golden gleam as they met Es 
 tabel s. 
 
 Olive-hazel - that soft tint before the nut quite 
 ripens these eyes were, as to their irids, with singular
 
 BY THE RIVER. 147 
 
 fine aureate threads rayed close about their pupils, like 
 the stamen- star at the heart of a flower, so Estabel 
 analyzed them afterward ; hut few found out the canny 
 secret of their coloring; and there was no need, for the 
 shadow and the light were both moved from within and 
 made them sometimes gently, but always sweetly, grave, 
 and sometimes translucent as amber with a beautiful 
 
 jy- 
 
 Her dress was a plain brown gingham ; the ribbon at 
 the throat, under a white collar, was drawn through an 
 old-fashioned brooch of gold, formed in a circle, that 
 held the knot in its centre. Her shady straw hat had 
 a brown ribbon twisted round it, whose edges were a 
 golden colored cord. And her hair, that fell richly about 
 her face and behind her ears in natural wavy masses 
 kept just short enough to be so worn, was itself russet- 
 golden. She was all soft brown and gold, all sweet 
 soberness and light. That was how Estabel first saw 
 her; it was what she always afterwards found her to be. 
 Her eyes, and more than her eyes, were satisfied with 
 a rare, strange pleasure. 
 
 " Have you just found this place, like me ? " she 
 asked, dropping back to walk beside the newcomer. 
 
 "Oh, no! " the girl laughed. "I belong here almost. 
 I come here every pleasant day since I got well of my 
 broken leg. It left me a little weak, and so they turn 
 me out loose. Mr. Thistlestoke is a friend of my 
 father s. He gets all his lumber here my father, I 
 mean. He s a carpenter a housebuilder. We live 
 round in Shawme Street, close by." 
 
 "I live in Mount Street with my aunt, Mrs. Clymer. 
 I ve been going to school all last winter; and I never 
 knew about this lovely place before. I feel as if I had 
 discovered America over again." 
 
 "I guess people are always discovering or might 
 be if they knew how. There s such a great deal in the 
 world. Is n t there?"
 
 148 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Yes. Sometimes it worries me to think of all that s 
 beyond my reach; and then, again, I m glad that it s 
 all there, and I ve only just begun, and can never come 
 to the end of it." 
 
 "To the end no. But it s all for everybody, 
 some time, my grandmother says." 
 
 A shadow fell on Estabel s face. "I haven t either 
 a mother or a grandmother," she said. "I never had 
 to know. I ve only aunts. And they re just as 
 different as they can be. But they re very good to 
 me," she added quickly. "Only I think it takes the 
 mothers and the grandmothers to quite understand, and 
 explain for you." 
 
 "My mother is dead, too. But my grandmother 
 says I m my mother and myself, both, to her. And 
 I m sure she s that kind of a mother to me that means 
 both." 
 
 "Won t you please tell me your name? " 
 
 "Oh, yes. Lilian Hawtr.ee. Elizabeth Anne, really. 
 But they put it all together and called me Lilian while 
 my mother was alive because it was her name, too; and 
 so I m Lilian now. " 
 
 She did not ask Estabel s name in return. Frank 
 and sweet as she was, she knew the little outside dif 
 ference there was between the carpenter s shop and 
 Shawme Street, and the house of some rich man, doubt 
 less, up among the people on the hill. She waited, 
 but Estabel did not let her wait. 
 
 "I am Estabel Charlock. Now we know each other. 
 May I come down here again and talk with you ? " 
 
 "Oh, I wish you would. I m just a little lonesome, 
 sometimes, after somebody of my own age. You see 
 I m not quite strong, and the girls round here play 
 games that I don t care for, and I don t know very 
 many people. Grandmother is particular. Everybody s 
 particular in the city in different ways ; or else 
 they aren t particular at all, and that is worse."
 
 BY THE RIVER. 149 
 
 The two parted at the corner of Shawme and Mount 
 streets. 
 
 But a friendship had been born there, that June 
 morning, among the sweet-smelling lumber piles by the 
 blue Shawme Kiver. Two young human souls, as had 
 been meant, had found each other.
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT? 
 
 "!T is just the difference between a lot of little round 
 shot, rolling about together, and a few drops of quick 
 silver, " said Estabel. 
 
 "What is just that, may I ask? " inquired Dr. Ulick, 
 coming in from the dining-room, where his Uncle Clymer 
 had been showing him some plans and papers. 
 
 "The difference between people you are acquainted 
 with and those you know, " Estabel answered. 
 
 " She knows a new girl intimately ; she has seen 
 her three times, " Harry Henslee explained, laughing. 
 
 "She s the sweetest girl I ve seen in Topthorpe." 
 
 "She is a carpenter s daughter down in Shawme 
 Street." 
 
 Estabel and her aunt made these respective decla 
 rations to the world in general, not looking at each 
 other. Mrs. Clymer drew a long thread of wool from 
 the light heap in her lap-basket, and plied her ivory 
 needles rapidly. 
 
 "Jesus Christ was a carpenter." 
 
 "Don t be irreverent, Estabel." 
 
 "No, aunt, I m not. But I think if Jesus Christ 
 was alive I don t mean that," she corrected indig 
 nantly, as she caught the irrepressible flicker of a smile 
 on Dr. North s face "who s irreverent now, I won 
 der ? I mean, if He was here in this city, as he was 
 in Jerusalem, there is n t a house he d go to sooner 
 than Mr. Hawtree s. Nor where they d be more fit to 
 have him."
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT? 151 
 
 "Estabel, I think you have said enough." 
 
 Then Estabel became quiet. She knew that she had 
 spoken her true words too audaciously, and might per 
 haps so have lost her cause. 
 
 She bent her head over her own work, which was the 
 covering little cardboard lozenges with bits of silk. A 
 basket full of them, cut to match each other, lay upon 
 a little stool beside her. For a few minutes she was 
 as retired within herself as if there had not been others 
 in the room. Then Dr. North came round and placed 
 himself on a sofa end behind her low chair. 
 
 Harry Henslee had watched her quizzically, with 
 a mind to a like move, but was just too late. Mr. 
 Clymer had come in from the other room and joined the 
 group about the large centre table, over which a resplen 
 dent chandelier shed its abundant light. He brought 
 with him his book of plans, and said something to Harry 
 about his father, and a proposed meeting the next night 
 of the investors in the undertaking the drawings repre 
 sented, of which company the elder Mr. Henslee was one. 
 And when Mr. Clymer began talking of this great scheme 
 for the improvement of the " Round, " which should build 
 it up into a "Place " of elegant dwellings and plant a 
 new fashionable nucleus, it was not easy to escape the 
 subject, or to make an available pause. 
 
 "Mrs. Clymer and you seem to be weaving and 
 patching rainbows," said Ulick to Estabel. "Is all 
 this work for the Snips ? " 
 
 "Looks like it, does n t it? Yes. It s for the 
 great Remnants and Snips Fair. Aunt Vera is knit 
 ting up a Magic Ball into what Sara Sullivant calls 
 a varigated African ; and these " (running her fin 
 gers under the pile of silken scraps and tossing up a 
 brilliant confusion) "are to be a grand divan cover in 
 perspective blocks. We shall raffle it for fifty dollars." 
 "Fifty dollars worth of snipped-up time," remarked 
 the doctor. "I wonder what snips and remnants truly
 
 152 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 are ! Something you have to make first out of whole 
 cloth or what really happens to get left of any 
 thing ? " 
 
 "Aunt Vera, what are remnants?" Estabel handed 
 over the question to Mrs. Clymer, breaking amicably 
 with a new subject the silence that had fallen somewhat 
 glumly upon that lady. 
 
 "Things left over." 
 
 "After what? I ve often wondered where the using 
 ended and the left-over began." 
 
 "When you ve got all you want, I suppose, and 
 there s a little more than you can do anything with." 
 
 Dr. North saw that the conversation was getting on 
 very well without him, and sat back, complacently lis 
 tening. 
 
 "Aunt Vera, it seems to me that the left-over might 
 very often be the biggest piece." 
 
 Ulick laughed. 
 
 "What do you apply that to? " asked Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 " Why, to the definition of our snips and remnants. 
 They were to be of time and money and thought that 
 we did not need for ourselves. And I do believe we 
 measure them off at the wrong end very often." 
 
 "Where would you measure them? " 
 
 "I don t know. It s quite likely I should measure 
 them as other people do, a great big plenty for myself, 
 and scraps and parings for the rest. But it doesn t 
 seem to me as if that was the way it was meant. There 
 were twelve baskets full picked up, you know. Just as 
 much as those twelve men could carry, I suppose. And 
 that was after they had divided round all they had at 
 first. I wish it told what they did with them." 
 
 " The baskets full ? Kept on dividing, somehow, 
 probably don t you think?" put in Dr. Ulick. 
 "There was something for some of those five thousand 
 to carry home even after they were no longer hungry. 
 It s a pretty apologue."
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT? 153 
 
 "An apologue is a fable, isn t it?" demanded Es 
 tabel with a challenging surprise. 
 
 "Well, a fable is a guise of truth. We won t go 
 into that just now. Please let us know which end of 
 the cloth you consider the remnant." 
 
 "I think it must be all that we don t actually need 
 to cut off for ourselves." 
 
 "And then what? " 
 
 "Why, cut for other people, just as long as it will 
 hold out." 
 
 "And never store away? " 
 
 "Not much. Perhaps not any if we re making 
 new cloth all the time." 
 
 "Rank communism!" exclaimed the doctor. But 
 there was a twinkle in his eye, half frankly sympa 
 thetic, half sardonically diverted. 
 
 "They 11 be a splendid lot of houses. And not too 
 many of them. It will be the making of this new part 
 of the city. You 11 live in one of them, yourself, a 
 few years hence, Harry, as likely as not. This is to 
 be the court end of Topthorpe. See here, all of you. 
 We want a name for the new Place," said Mr. Clymer, 
 turning round with his last words toward the three others. 
 
 Dr. North found time to say to Estabel that which 
 he had really come beside her to say. 
 
 "You ve come across a new Cinderella, haven t 
 you?" he asked her. "Are you going to turn Fairy 
 Godmother ? " 
 
 "There s a Godmother already," Estabel answered. 
 " The most beautiful, dear, old no, not old at all 
 she s fresh and new and makes everything else so 
 Grand-mother ! But there s no time to tell you about 
 her now. " 
 
 And they fell into the discussion over the name of 
 the fine new Square, as expected. 
 
 "Why not Clymer ? " suggested Dr. North. 
 
 Uncle Abel looked pleased. "Oh, there are half a
 
 154 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 dozen others with as good a right perhaps, " he said. 
 "To be sure, I m the largest shareholder. But we 
 don t intend to make it personal. I ve thought of 
 Westmarch Place. It isn t a Square, you know. 
 It s to be an arc or a bow open at this end. 
 We ve taken in the lots this side of Clover Street. It 
 will be thoroughly quiet and retired all to itself. 
 There s privilege in it, you see limited privilege, and 
 folks will always pay for that. Oh, it s a noble 
 scheme ! It means a twelve per cent, interest to in 
 vestors, on five years leases; to say nothing of dou 
 bling ultimate values. No sales, mind you, under ten 
 years. And now for a name." 
 
 "Why not call it Privilege Place ? " said Harry. 
 
 " Or Monopoly, or Prerogative ? " added the 
 doctor, intensifying Harry s joke to an absurdity that 
 could not possibly be taken gravely. 
 
 "Why not just The Arc ? " asked Estabel. 
 
 " Wherein eight souls or a few more are to be 
 saved out of the common lot ? " whispered Dr. North. 
 
 Mr. Clymer did not hear that ; he answered Estabel 
 literally. "It is n t bad; but it hardly specifies suffi 
 ciently. We want it to have quality name and all." 
 
 "Ah, the old Ark missed it! " Dr. North persisted, 
 in his private sotto voce. 
 
 Estabel laughed quietly, and said "hush!" enjoying 
 very much, nevertheless, the little confidential fun with 
 the dour doctor. Then aloud, to her uncle, "Perhaps 
 The Zodiac would do. Only that s a circle, I be 
 lieve." 
 
 "An imaginary band," said Dr. North, "in which 
 the chief constellations are supposed to be set, and 
 among which the sun has his path. But it isn t of 
 much use in our advanced astronomy; and the name 
 comes from zoo, you know, which is a garden of 
 animals." 
 
 Everybody laughed at that. Mr. Clymer shut up
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT? 155 
 
 his book of drawings. "I want real suggestions," he 
 said, with a slight irritation. 
 
 "Really, then, Uncle Abel," said Estabel, "I 
 would n t call it anything that refers to shape or build 
 ings or imaginary circles. I d make it sound sweet 
 and delightful, somehow. Why not West Gardens ? 
 The houses are all to have gardens, and the Round will 
 be a middle garden for the whole." 
 
 "It s the best yet," declared Mr. Clymer in a cheer 
 fully altered tone; and he took up his plans and carried 
 them off. 
 
 Ulick North did not forget Estabel and her Cinder 
 ella. He got a word about that matter presently with 
 Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 "I think you may trust her to take a good deal of 
 her own way," he told Aunt Vera. "She won t go 
 so far wrong in such directions, as she might in some 
 others. She is full of fancy, and it must take hold of 
 something. I happen to know these Hawtrees. I 
 visited them in my early practice, with Dr. Sayward. 
 And the young girl is a recent patient of mine ; she had 
 a broken leg. They are quite safe people, satisfied 
 where they belong. It would be an isolated case of 
 intimacy if it came to that." 
 
 "Oh, I suppose it doesn t matter much. It may be 
 a safety valve, as you say. Only one never really 
 knows where a girl like Estabel will stop. I dare say 
 this would naturally, however, be separate from any 
 thing else. There would be no actual clashing nor 
 mixing up. In fact, it s a kind of charity visiting." 
 
 Dr. North let it rest with v that. He did not tell 
 Mrs. Clymer that Lilian Hawtree was a young girl such 
 as one has in Topthorpe but a few, sift and winnow as 
 people may. Such positive praise, or even unqualified 
 opinion, was hardly characteristic of him. Neither, in 
 this instance, would it be likely to take effect ; and Dr. 
 North knew how to suit his therapeutics to his cases.
 
 156 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Harry s father came in, and this brought back Mr. 
 Clymer, his head still full of the great project, and 
 fresh talk followed. Dr. North lingered. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer sat back comfortably, and listened, 
 knitting her long rows, drawing out her wool, and chan 
 ging her needles, always to repeat the self-same stitches, 
 back and forth. It was like her life. The ball of 
 wool was big; the soft, continuous thread was ready to 
 her hand without a break or snarl, the colors cunningly 
 apportioned in a preconceived order ; she had only to keep 
 on picking up her loops and taking care to drop none. 
 
 Her little talk with Ulick had relieved her. She 
 was always glad to settle things easily. No great harm 
 could be done by letting them run awhile just now. 
 Estabel was to spend the month of July with her Aunt 
 Esther at Stilhvick, and for August Aunt Vera had 
 another plan. When school began again and winter 
 came, all would fall into the old routine. There would 
 be no sitting by the river then. 
 
 But Mrs. Clymer did not fully understand the differ 
 ence between leaden shot and drops of quicksilver. 
 
 Across her thoughts broke disjointedly the accompani 
 ment of business explanations in business phrase. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer did not trouble herself about under 
 standing much of such details. If the results came 
 round to her in their successes, like the yarn from the 
 magic ball into the graded tints of her pretty work, it 
 was enough. 
 
 Mr. Clymer s affairs were growing complicated. 
 Greatly enlarged in the few years since her first ac 
 quaintance with him, she could not expect to compre 
 hend them all. The original occupation in trade which 
 had been the foundation of his prosperity had been 
 gradually given over to other hands, he retaining only 
 a certain capital interest ; and brokering and banking, 
 joint-stock operations and enterprises, were absorbing 
 his faculties and facilities, and thus far doubling and
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT ? 157 
 
 redoubling his ventures and investments. His wife was 
 satisfied with the outline of facts. When he talked to 
 her of business, she knitted and listened and smiled, as 
 likely as not considering in her mind the color, cut, and 
 trimming of a new dress, or the possibility of a set of 
 jewels, while he argued chances, proved certainties, and 
 reckoned percentages. All she asked to know was the 
 how much he was putting in, and the how much he 
 would get out. 
 
 To-night, she heard the words "architects estimates, " 
 "specifications," "contracts," "sub-contracts," "mar 
 gin for overrun," etc., etc., as so many merely mechani 
 cal minutiae which concerned only the competent, re 
 sponsible parties, as the stitching of her gowns was 
 the concern of her dressmaker. She took the subject, 
 like that, in its final effect ; complacent that her hus 
 band was the leader and organizer of weighty undertak 
 ings, the substantial carrying out of which was to bear 
 witness, in this instance, to his consequence, before her 
 very windows, in the sight of all Mount Street. 
 
 She had no least idea of how Estabel Charlock was 
 listening, trying to comprehend, and was swaying to a 
 moral judgment of all these things, as question and an 
 swer developed their method and intent in the conver 
 sation about her. 
 
 Dr. North stayed by, evidently held by interest in 
 the renewed discussion. That was simply natural, for 
 a man, she thought, and Mr. Clymer s nephew. 
 
 "All under one inclusive contract?" she heard him 
 ask. 
 
 "Yes. Brace and Buckle take the whole. Then 
 they sub-let, in jobs, to builders. With all that we 
 have nothing to do. Thoroughgood and Strong wanted 
 it, but Brace and Buckle underbid ; a difference of nine 
 thousand." 
 
 "And then there comes a second question of lowest 
 bids, with the mechanics, I suppose. Goes through
 
 158 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 two sieves, if not more. Chance for some losing on 
 the way, isn t there? " 
 
 "Always that, of course, if people don t look out. 
 It s for every man to see to for himself." 
 
 Estabel searched Dr. North s face for the understand 
 ing of this, which was heyond her grasp. She saw a 
 hard half smile curl his lips downward at the corners. 
 She knew he despised something; she wondered what. 
 She saved that wonder up till she should see him next, 
 and could make a question of it. The present opportu 
 nity was nearly over. 
 
 Mr. Henslee looked at his watch. "Well, Harry? " 
 he said, and rose. In ten minutes the visitors were all 
 gone, and the family in their rooms. 
 
 The next time came next day. Estabel met Dr. 
 North on Mount Street as she turned Linden Street 
 corner, coming back from a shopping errand. 
 
 "I hope you are coming in," she said, as they walked 
 down the long block together. 
 
 "Not this time," he answered. "I ve a call to 
 make and then an office appointment. A doctor isn t 
 his own man." 
 
 "I ve been wondering if anybody s his own man. I 
 wanted to ask you a question. It was about the talk 
 last night. What are those contracts? And what do 
 they mean by lowest bids ? And why must anybody 
 lose ? " 
 
 "That is a big subject. A contract is an agreement, 
 to furnish a certain material, or to do a certain piece 
 of work in a certain way, for a certain price. The 
 people who want the material, or to have the work done, 
 call for bids ; the man who will undertake the business 
 for the least money gets the bargain. Then, if it s a 
 large affair, he calls for other bids, for separate parts, 
 and gives them out again at the lowest price. Probably 
 if he has had to underbid riskily himself, he must make 
 it up, if he can, by cheapening the jobs under him."
 
 WHICH END IS THE REMNANT? 159 
 
 "And then what do they do the jobbers ? " 
 
 "Scamp the work sometimes unless they re 
 watched too sharply. Or cheapen the material. Or 
 make an honest bad business of it for themselves, and 
 go under." 
 
 "Seems to me it is a plan to make bad business, all 
 through. Isn t there any other way? " 
 
 "There s work by the day, but that is always 
 costly. When people are paid for time, they are very 
 likely to take time." 
 
 " Is every kind of work like that ? And every kind 
 of business ? Is everybody trying to get it out of the 
 others ? And is that how people grow rich ? " 
 
 Estabel poured the questions forth impetuously. 
 They were coming near their own corner. 
 
 "It is impossible to make a general statement cover 
 all that," said Dr. Ulick. "That involves the whole 
 moral and practical history of trade and human service, 
 and all the problems of political economy." 
 
 "I should think it involved the whole New Testa 
 ment and the Ten Commandments, " said Estabel gravely. 
 "Are n t you glad you are a doctor? " 
 
 "That s a good deal like the old lady who said it 
 took all sorts of people to make the world, and she was 
 terrible glad she wasn t one of em," said the doctor, 
 smiling. "Why should I be glad to be a doctor? " 
 
 They Avere now at the marble steps of No. 84. 
 
 "Because you really do your best every time, and 
 you just get paid for that." 
 
 "Don t think too well of us. We get paid for our 
 time, too. It s often a little too easy to extend the 
 account." 
 
 "I don t believe" Estabel began 1 ; but she could 
 not tell that man to his face what she did not think him 
 capable of. And just then Archibald answered her ring. 
 
 She turned upon the steps as Dr. North lifted his 
 hat. He was always carefully polite.
 
 160 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " I think I know one thing, now, " she said, looking 
 down at him. 
 
 "What is that?" he asked; his raised hat and lin 
 gering attitude marking the interrogation. 
 
 "Where the Remnant comes. I think it must he 
 at the twelve per cent, interest end." 
 
 As Dr. North walked down the street he said to him 
 self, "I wonder if she will think so if ever a twelve per 
 cent, interest comes into her hands. The world is a 
 test crucible."
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 THE GLADMOTHEB. 
 
 "GLADMOTHER will be sitting among her rainbows." 
 
 "What is it you call her?" 
 
 "Gladmother. When I was little I couldn t say 
 Grand. I had to leave out the n, and turn the r 
 into an ; 1. So it made just what she ought to be 
 called, you see; you will see; and we ve kept it up. 
 But we don t call her so except among ourselves." 
 
 "Thank you, dear." 
 
 And then Lilian, who held Estabel s arm as they 
 walked along Shawme Street, gave it a warm little 
 squeeze. 
 
 It was a Sunday afternoon. Estabel had only once 
 been in the Hawtrees house, and then half accidentally, 
 so that there had been but a brief stop and talk. She 
 would not sit down and visit, until she had leave from 
 her own home. Now she had been made condition 
 ally free. "I don t care, so long as you don t mix 
 things," Mrs. Clymer had said. "And so long as you 
 don t give up everything else." 
 
 Aunt Vera could not have been more diplomatic if 
 she had intended diplomacy of the farthest-reaching 
 sort. Estabel could have had no more impelling motive 
 for considering her aunt s pleasure in other directions 
 and on other occasions, which were pretty certain to be 
 comparatively exceptional, than her appreciation of this 
 accordance of liberty for what she began to call to her 
 self her "every-day times." 
 
 She had not seen the Gladmother among her rain-
 
 162 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 bows. As yet she knew her chiefly through Lilian s 
 portrayal and quotation, and the peculiar reflection in 
 Lilian herself of beautiful and gracious influence that it 
 was plain had come to her no otherwise than by this 
 nearness and dearness of beautiful and gracious life. 
 
 Lilian took her friend straight upstairs to-day. In a 
 room that looked to south and west warm in winter 
 from the unbroken sunlight and cool in summer from 
 the unobstructed river breezes they came upon a sweet 
 ness and a presence of which even every inanimate thing 
 therein was full. 
 
 There was very little that seemed inanimate. Only 
 the needful supports, and appliances of chairs, tables, 
 bed, water-stand, that having each its own office to 
 render belonged directly to use and life, and being for 
 their respective purposes of the most absolute simple 
 fitness and daintiness, became symbolic ; representative 
 not through show of luxury or fancy, but through pure 
 relation, of all freshness, sweetness, and repose. One 
 passed them over in regard, as one does the features of 
 a pleasant, harmonious face, only gathering from them 
 their full expression of the finer things of very life itself. 
 
 In the windows were baskets, not pots, of ferns; 
 these stood over china jars, into which the water 
 dripped with which they were frequently and generously 
 showered, to their beautiful delight ; this constant 
 drainage, like that natural to them in their woodland 
 nooks by stream sides, rooted in light, spongy soil 
 among the mossy rocks, kept them as under the spray 
 and plash of a waterfall, always moist, but never sod 
 den. "I could not let my ferns be homesick," the 
 Gladmother would say. 
 
 Their delicate springing fronds were lifted high until 
 the slender stems could no longer sustain uprightness, 
 and then they drooped until of themselves they made 
 a green cascade from stand to floor. Maiden-hairs, in 
 side brackets, from which, in turn, superfluous moisture
 
 THE GLADMOTHER. 163 
 
 trickled to the fern baskets underneath, rounded their 
 plumes into clouds of tenclerest mingled shades ; the 
 little outspread palms of their myriad leaflets showing 
 deep green in their hollows, and a golden life-tint at 
 their infinitely tiny finger-tips. Small pots of violets 
 and mignonette were hidden in the greenery, and the 
 sweet smell of them was in the air. 
 
 " She manages to keep them all the year round, " said 
 Lilian. 
 
 "I don t try to cultivate difficult flowers," the Glad- 
 mother said. "Ferns are always here and always beau 
 tiful; an open window is as good to them as all out 
 doors ; they only want light and water, and enough 
 fresh air to breathe. When the sun is full upon them 
 I draw those little green screens behind them, and let 
 my sunbeams come in above, as I may want them. I 
 never shut them wholly out if I can possibly help it, 
 because I want my rainbows. " 
 
 In each window a silken cord was suspended midwise 
 from a hook, its two ends holding tassels of prismatic crys 
 tal ; richly faceted balls and drops that had once adorned 
 some grand old chandelier. The cord could be slipped 
 at pleasure to raise and lower these clear refractors to 
 such points in the light as would let them scatter their 
 wonderful radiances most charmingly. The Gladmo- 
 ther knew well where she loved best to have them touch 
 and linger in the room about her. 
 
 In a quiet corner stood an old-fashioned easy chair 
 with high, cushioned sides and back, in which one felt 
 instinctively some dear invalid must many a time have 
 rested ; perhaps some long fading life, tenderly minis 
 tered to, have lingered itself peacefully away. Beside 
 it stood a little table, whose top could be turned round 
 across the chair front. On this were a cup and plate, 
 a little cordial glass and silver spoon, and an old-fash 
 ioned heavy watch with fob chain and seal, hung to a 
 silver tripod stand.
 
 164 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Somebody had used and hallowed the things; they 
 stood here, sacred. The watch, kept faithfully wound, 
 ticked away the time until, perhaps, the other appoint 
 ments might again be made last use of, in love and holy 
 memorial. It was like a little Sacrament table. 
 
 Upon the wall above the chair there was a picture, 
 the lovely face of a woman. Young, tender, serene. 
 Estabel guessed, what Lilian told her later, that it was 
 the picture of the mother who had died long years before. 
 
 A shaft of rainbow light shot in broken gleams almost 
 from floor to ceiling up through the quiet corner. It 
 touched the chair foot with a crimson flame ; it rested 
 on the top, where a head might rest, in soft, clear 
 amber ; above the sweet face in the picture it quivered 
 from out the shadowy background in a violet bloom that 
 shaped itself like the petals of a purple flower. Be 
 low or beside this shimmered a soft green ; underneath 
 flashed a keen fire sparkle of pure gold. Something 
 a candlestick upon the corner of a chiffonier, which 
 betrayed its intervention by a burnish of strange color 
 had caught back fragments of the ray, so that it shiv 
 ered at last into this wonderful semblance that painted 
 itself symbolically upon the canvas. The glory-blossom 
 lay close above the clustering hair; it seemed to set 
 itself gently among the rimpled locks; it was a flower 
 and a star together. 
 
 "Mamma has got a pansy in her hair," said Lilian. 
 
 "It comes there every day," answered the Glad- 
 mother tenderly. 
 
 Over on the white pillows of the bed were dropped 
 faint, sweet flushes of pink, as if rose leaves had been 
 scattered ; and across upon the farther wall the rest of 
 the beautiful chord declared itself, the fire tints, and 
 the saffron and the beryl. Overhead was a long, slender 
 pencil of the perfect hues, from faintest rose to melting 
 amethyst ; here and there were disks and dashes de 
 tached and separate ; they fell on floor, on furnishings,
 
 THE GLADMOTHER. 165 
 
 on any little thing that was in the sun-path; sometimes 
 like molten drops, sometimes like living tongues of 
 flame. One tender little gleam kissed the rim of Glad- 
 mother s cap and the silver of her folded hair, and she 
 did not know it until Lilian told her. On the open page 
 of her large-print Prayer Book that lay beside her, had 
 come an illumination of pure, vivid blue ; strangely 
 enough if anything is ever strange that happens to 
 the touching of our higher apprehension flooding the 
 text of message and gospel for Trinity Sunday so lately 
 past, whose word the Gladmother dearly loved to turn 
 to the year round, where the sea of glass, and the seven 
 lamps of fire burning before the throne, and the rainbow 
 like an emerald round about, and the pavement of sap 
 phire as the body of heaven in his clearness, are written- 
 of and brought to mind. 
 
 Nothing was strange ; it was all most beautifully, 
 naturally accordant ; but when Estabel saw the splendid 
 transparent color on the book, and came near and read, 
 the lines were as instant and miraculous revelation. 
 
 "Why, the light is what the words say! " she ex 
 claimed. "They were read only the other Sunday, and 
 I hardly noticed ! It seems as if the sign had come 
 straight down! " 
 
 The Gladmother smiled. "That is what I always 
 think, " she said ; " and why I love so to let the rain 
 bows in. But I don t think so much of their coming 
 doivn, as of their shining out. Colors and sweet smells 
 just breathe and flash from the life behind, that we 
 don t see, or know ourselves alive in." 
 
 "Oh, that s just what puzzles me," said Estabel. 
 " Where do we live ? " 
 
 "You ve lived in the country, haven t you? " asked 
 the Gladmother. "Well, how does the city seem? " 
 
 "I think it seems as if it had no inside to it. You 
 can t get in under the bricks. What is underneath the 
 stones and behind the show ? "
 
 166 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Just what is everywhere, under and inside of every 
 thing. It is the Heart- World." 
 
 Who knows anything about it? " 
 
 "Ah, that s the question. That s what Nicodemus 
 wanted to know, and didn t even know he wanted it. 
 We ve got to have two kinds of sight, and two kinds 
 of hearing, and two kinds of feeling. And yet it has 
 got to be all one, seen and heard and felt together ; 
 as our two eyes and our two ears see and hear together, 
 and our outside touch joins to our inside understand 
 ing." 
 
 "Well, I guess there are a good many people deaf 
 and blind and sick of the palsy." 
 
 " So there were when the Word came and the 
 Light and the Power. He opened their eyes and 
 their ears, and He sent his life through their dead bod 
 ies. He does it now. He is doing it all the time ; 
 because He is alive, in the Heart- World, and we are 
 alive by Him. Don t you remember how He touched 
 the eyes of the blind man twice ? He opened first the 
 outside sight, and then the inside. First, the man only 
 saw other men as trees walking; and then he saw every 
 man clearly. That s the way the world and the 
 people look to us, while we only half see just 
 things, and a life among things, until we get into the 
 Heart- World, and live in the spirit." 
 
 The two young girls sat quiet. The words, so sim 
 ply spoken, were great with a deep experience, and 
 touched them in their deepest, hardly conscious nature. 
 The dear old lady was not in a hurry to say more. 
 Whenever she spoke in this wise, it was always as if 
 something said itself Something beyond her uttered 
 it. The ignorant apostles spoke with tongues. 
 
 " In all these things is the visitation of thy spirit, 
 she repeated softly, a minute or two after. "Colors 
 and sounds and pleasant smells and tastes are all just 
 next to the heavenly. They are fine and tender; you
 
 THE GLADMOTHER. 167 
 
 can t take hold of them. They are the secrets of our 
 Father, the thoughts of Him toward us. Our five 
 senses are doors into holy chambers. The sweeter the 
 secrets are, the tenderer they show and feel. What 
 are flowers born out of? They are made into something 
 that will hardly bear a touch. They just open into 
 sight witli the least making that we can possibly see 
 them by. Look through a rose leaf. It is nothing but 
 small dew and color. I don t know the philosophy of 
 it ; but I think the flowers and leaves are of the nature 
 of my prisms, only a thousand times more delicate ; 
 their whole substance is of little water crystals set to 
 gether to catch every one its own particular kind of 
 light, and show us how beautiful it can be, with the 
 thought-heauty of bright red and soft yellow and purple 
 and blue and green. I think it is something, actually, 
 of the light of the Heavenly City. And when I smell 
 a violet, I think it is alive with the air the angels 
 breathe." 
 
 "Why, Mrs. Trubin, if people lived like that it 
 would be heaven ! " 
 
 "Yes," replied Gladmother Trubin quietly; "that is 
 what it s meant to be. The kingdom of heaven is at 
 hand. 
 
 "I wish, then," said Estabel after a little silence, 
 "there needn t be so many outsides. They re a great 
 bother. They re always in the way. You can t get 
 rid of them." 
 
 All Estabel s difficulties came rushing like eager 
 applicants for some suddenly presented relief. They 
 all wanted answer. 
 
 " I think you mean false outsides, " said the Glad- 
 mother. 
 
 "I suppose I do. They re all mixed up. I think 
 they re worst of all in church, where you go to get 
 inside. You know they have no business, and it s 
 wicked. You want to leave them out and you can t.
 
 168 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 You can t get inside, nor stay. There they all are, 
 the bonnets and the gowns and the nice gloves holding 
 the Prayer Books, and the way people do their hair. 
 I m always noticing ; and then the words slip away 
 and are gone, and the chance is over, and I haven t 
 realized anything at all. Down there hy the river the 
 other day, the Te Deum and the Psalm just came to 
 me. They were in the water and the air and the 
 sunshine." 
 
 "God s outsides. Yes. We make our own, a great 
 deal too much. They crowd his out. That s what the 
 Second Commandment is against. Some outsides we 
 have to make. But we needn t stop in them. We 
 need n t fall down and worship them. When human 
 souls are together, especially in church, I think they 
 might rememher that underneath clothes and bodies 
 
 are hearts and lives, and the world they make and 
 belong to all their wants and wishes, and pains and 
 gladness, and troubles and loves a great moving, 
 breathing world of spirits the real world in which 
 the Father of spirits dwells with us, and where we find 
 Him face to face. If you could feel into all that, 
 you d realize the words, wouldn t you? " 
 
 "Oh, yes! If people would! If you knew they did 
 all round you. But you know they don t." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 "Just by your own not feeling. You couldn t help 
 it if they did." 
 
 "I am not sure about that. Even if they were all 
 blind, they are there; and the Lord looks upon the 
 heart of every one of them. At any rate, there s the 
 help in the very prayers. It s all provided for. From 
 all blindness of heart from not seeing in, and feel 
 ing, together from pride, vain glory, and hypocrisy 
 
 the things that hinder Good Lord, deliver us ! 
 "I think it would be good to keep saying that all the 
 
 time."
 
 THE GLADMOTHER. 169 
 
 "One can. There is always some one thing we need 
 especially ; and remembering it all through helps all 
 the rest." 
 
 "You know how to go to church, Mrs. Trubin! " 
 
 "Maybe I ve learned more about it since I couldn t 
 go." 
 
 "Do people always have to learn things at the wrong 
 time? I beg your pardon I didn t mean you but 
 I always seem to. " 
 
 "There isn t ever a wrong time, except the times we 
 make wrong. Everything will fit together in the 
 Lord s time. We live in little bits. But we are to 
 bring the pieces to Him. He knows what to do with 
 them; even the pieces we have broken." 
 
 "The Remnants," said Estabel thoughtfully.
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS. 
 
 ESTABEL and Lilian had walked down across Old 
 Park. There was an errand at a thread store, but 
 there was no hurry about that. They could have an 
 hour together if they chose ; they would do their errand 
 first, and the rest should be pure enjoyment. 
 
 It could hardly be else, anywhere, that summer day. 
 The world, even the city world, was beautiful. The very 
 smell of the streets, as the great water carts sprinkled 
 them freshly, was a reminder of sweet open earth after 
 a shower; and here in the Park the greenness and the 
 quietness were something kept sacred from all confusing 
 and "covering up " with which the city could offend. 
 
 They were happy, as two girls in a young, intimate 
 friendship only are ; in a simple frankness of delight, 
 untouched by any disquietude, uncertainty, or mystery, 
 that may stir an after experience ; when they are in the 
 morning together, and all the day looks dewy-fresh and 
 clear. 
 
 Lilian s crutch was a thing of weeks past. It was so 
 good, she said, to have two feet again, instead of three. 
 And Estabel laughed, and called her "Goody Two- 
 Shoes. " 
 
 In the Lower Mall they met Dr. North. 
 
 "Going to see the roses, young ladies? " he asked 
 them as he greeted them pleasantly. 
 
 " Eoses ? Where ? " said Estabel. 
 
 "Why, right over here where everybody is going 
 to-day. In the Hall of Plants. Roses and rhododen 
 drons. If you 11 come, I 11 show you."
 
 ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS. 171 
 
 So he led them along, across the wide avenue, and 
 into the large open vestibule of the Hall building. 
 People stood there in groups, meeting by appointment 
 or by accident, chatting and bowing, buying tickets, 
 proceeding in detachments or singly up the short, wide 
 staircase. 
 
 Halfway, as Dr. North and the two young girls as 
 cended in their turn, their movement was checked by 
 a stoppage at the upper doorway. A lady behind them 
 had put her foot upon the step they had reached when 
 the slight backward surge of the temporary crowd 
 obliged them to give way. Estabel felt herself pushed 
 against and displacing some one. She turned, as well 
 as she could, to apologize. "I m very sorry," she 
 said. "I could not help it." 
 
 " Of course you could not, " a pleasant voice an 
 swered ; and Estabel smiled, not directly at the speaker, 
 for whom the smile was meant, but from the constraint 
 of her position right into the cold, ignoring face of 
 Corinna Chilstone, accompanying her aunt, Mrs. Brith- 
 waite, the same lady who had liked Pen Westington 
 for being so cordial. 
 
 "Didn t you know that young girl? " Estabel heard 
 Mrs. Brithwaite ask presently, as they gained the top 
 and stood within the entrance door from the landing, 
 while the others were still detained at the collector s 
 table. "I thought she recognized you, and that I had 
 seen her face before." 
 
 "Very likely. She goes to Mr. Satterwood s, I be 
 lieve. But you don t know a girl just because you 
 happen to go to the same school with her. In Top- 
 thorpe we are apt to have seen almost anybody s face 
 before." 
 
 "Oh! I suppose so. And one can t have all of 
 everything; there s a good deal of the best that gets 
 missed, no doubt, f returned Mrs. Brithwaite. 
 
 To which keen little speech Corinna made no answer.
 
 172 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 She did not always find it quite easy to answer Aunt 
 Brithwaite ; neither was she always altogether comfort 
 able with her, though she liked to be seen with her, 
 and was particular to call her "Aunt Brithu-aite," 
 rather than "Aunt Frances," because she was an ex- 
 governor s widow, and not simply Mrs. Chilstone s 
 sister. 
 
 The dock grows beside the nettle. The kindness 
 veiled in the rebuke neutralized the virulence of the 
 sting. Estabel felt actually grateful for the one in the 
 comfort of the other. Even a nettle has its involuntary 
 relative use. And yet only a donkey can love a thistle. 
 
 But she forgot it all as they came into that world of 
 sweetness and light. There was nothing of this best 
 that she need miss. The key of its inner revelation 
 had been given her. 
 
 "I am so glad we had that talk with the Gladmother 
 before we came here, " she whispered to Lilian. And 
 then neither of them spoke again for many minutes. 
 
 A broad passageway ran round if one may say 
 round the long oval which occupied the middle of the 
 floor. This was formed of benches, tier above tier, filled 
 with the loveliest blooms. The lower range was all of 
 pansies, a crowd of leaning, nodding, laughing little 
 flower faces, beautiful in purples, in gold and citron 
 and amber, in bronzy brown and palest straw color, in 
 pure white with golden hearts and purple dashes at their 
 petal bases, in velvety black, in faint, sweet lavender; 
 from all the subtle breath arising that like a whisper of 
 perfume one had to bend down to catch and distinguish 
 from more accented fragrances. Above these were 
 banked the heliotropes, in shaded ripeness of soft color, 
 from the least tint of violet to the deepest amethyst ; 
 clouded and mixed in their arrangement, showing in 
 relief of the strong, rich leafage ; exhaling a redundance 
 of delicious odor ; holding the eye in a pause of satisfied 
 rest, and the sense in a dream of luxuriousness, before
 
 ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS. 173 
 
 they should be lifted to the supreme sweetness, the royal 
 magnificence of the queen of flowers. The topmost level 
 was the throne of the Roses. 
 
 "Eyes left," said the doctor, as they passed slowly 
 around with the throng. "Don t look at the other 
 side yet. Take in each thing by turn. It s like read 
 ing a book. You don t want to skip, or see what s 
 coming. " 
 
 Indeed, they had no wish, except that the congrega 
 tion might file past even more slowly. 
 
 Every rose that had ever learned to bloom, or that 
 horticulture yet knew, seemed there ; names were use 
 less, even if they could be known ; one only thought of 
 the wondrous, varied miracle ; of the mysterious choice 
 by which each took its own glorious or dainty color ; 
 how the rich, brilliant crimson drew the wine of its 
 splendid life into apparition ; how the sunshine sphered 
 itself in the bright yellow; how it softened as to twi 
 light beauty in the delicate sulphur and saffron; how 
 the tender blushing rose, the native, individual, primal 
 hue, asserted itself sweetly in the midst of all, lovely, 
 lovable as ever; how the long tea-buds bowed their 
 heads in very fullness, modest in exquisite sheathing of 
 cream, or verd- white, or buff, or coral-pink petals ; how 
 their little message was breathed subtly in an aroma 
 which no other knew, as if it were a specially intrusted 
 secret ; how they were all so different, and yet every 
 one was a Rose. 
 
 " How does it all come so ? " 
 
 Estabel hardly asked the question; it escaped her; 
 but Dr. North was at her side, and thought she spoke 
 to him. 
 
 "The laws of life of growth, assimilation, adapta 
 tion. Men study them, and try experiments encour 
 agement and selection in various lines ; differentiation 
 and development follow. There scarcely seems any 
 end to it."
 
 174 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "But there is a beginning. It must have all been 
 hid away the possible of it in the first Rose." 
 "Doubtless. The earth itself was a seed." 
 " Oh, how wonderful ! And the earth brought forth 
 grass, and herb, and tree, with their seeds in themselves. 
 That is what the Bible says." 
 
 They were speaking very low, standing close together 
 with the crowd about them. Other voices were busy 
 with other talk. Dr. North said no more for a mo 
 ment ; but almost in a whisper, Lilian quoted, " He 
 giveth it a body as it hath pleased him ; and to every 
 seed his own body. Gladmother says that means He 
 planned it all from the beginning and gives it every 
 time." 
 
 Dr. North looked at the young girl. Her simple 
 faith was in her face. 
 
 "That is a very happy way of thinking," he said to 
 her gently. But he spoke as if from outside of what 
 she meant. And of course they could not go far with 
 such conversation here and now. 
 
 "We have got round," he told them. "Now turn 
 your backs upon the roses and see the opposite side." 
 
 They had known that a great mass of flowers and 
 foliage was there. But they had resolutely refrained 
 from mixing their impressions. They had been shown 
 a better way. Now they moved into line on the right 
 side of the aisle, and came full upon the glory that was 
 like a builded wall around the whole. 
 
 The crowd was thinning. People were going home 
 to dinner and to other engagements. They could loiter; 
 they could see from side to side. The entire ellipse 
 was visible ; lined to the high clerestory windows with 
 the glistening green of the laurel leaves and the clus 
 tered heads of gorgeous bells that the " trees of roses " 
 bore. 
 
 Neither of them said a word. The word was all in 
 the mute, rich, abundant sign.
 
 ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS. 175 
 
 Pure masses of white, sweetly splendid flushes of 
 rose, deep crimson in high background like a cathedral 
 reredos, all supported and rilled in by the shiningly 
 dense foliage, there was no blank nor gap nor any in 
 completeness. Strangest, most perfect effect of all, 
 there was seemingly no bound. There were no walls. 
 It was a forest, whose limit was simply its own impen- 
 etrableness. Clerestory and glassed roof poured down 
 the daylight straight from a blue heaven. 
 
 "Well? " said Dr. North at last. "What is it like, 
 Estabel ? " 
 
 " Oh ! so many things ! Like a great oratorio in full 
 chorus, I think. I was listening as much as look 
 ing. " 
 
 "Are you glad you came? " 
 
 "I forgot I did come. It seemed as if somewhere 
 wherever I was it all appeared. " 
 
 "Which is a free translation of what people mean 
 when they say, It is a vision." 
 
 "And in the vision they always hear a voice." 
 
 " I suppose there is a language in everything ; a 
 music, perhaps. But there s where we can t penetrate. 
 It is a suggestion an imagination ; one thing reminds 
 us of another. We have only our five senses to prove 
 anything by, and they are limited." 
 
 Estabel did not answer, but she thought of the Glad- 
 mother s words about that. 
 
 Presently the doctor said, " But we must go, " and 
 then they went realistically down the stairs and out 
 into the street. 
 
 They all crossed the Old Park together. Home to 
 dinner was practical fact. Dr. North had his room 
 and office in West Yarrow Street, at the corner of 
 Clover. So his way lay along with theirs. The girls 
 had forgotten their braid and buttons. 
 
 " What is vision, Dr. North ? " asked Estabel sud 
 denly.
 
 176 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Physically or metaphysically ? " returned the doc 
 tor. 
 
 "What is the difference? " 
 
 "Are we to talk altogether in interrogations? " The 
 doctor laughed. 
 
 "Interrogations expect answers." 
 
 "And your questions have the initiative. Well 
 so far as I understand, physics deal with matter and 
 the energies of matter; metaphysics with something 
 beyond, or behind." 
 
 "Thank you. That settles it. I mean both." 
 
 "Both together? " 
 
 "I don t see how they can be separate. One means 
 how, and the other why of the same thing. " 
 
 " What have you been studying ? " 
 
 "Nothing new out of books. But I have been 
 seeing things ; and I want to know what you think 
 * vision means." 
 
 "I should say it means first the thing pictured to the 
 eye; and then the thing as pictured by the eye to the 
 brain; the impression made upon the sensorium." 
 
 "Isn t the sensorium a thing, too? " 
 
 "Matter, yes; a constitution of matter closely con 
 nected with the immaterial; with what we call mind. 
 There we have to stop." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Because we cannot investigate the immaterial." 
 
 " We only know it is there ? " 
 
 "We only know that we come to where we know 
 nothing. " 
 
 " Or everything, " said Estabel with grave simplicity. 
 
 " Babes and sucklings ! " ejaculated Dr. North. 
 "Perhaps you 11 tell me what, in your seeing of things, 
 yoii have got at ? " 
 
 " Only this, " said P^stabel ingenuously. " The world 
 is so alive. And things mean so much. They make 
 us feel and think. And feeling and thinking are what
 
 ROSES AND RHODODENDRONS. 177 
 
 living is for. So the making and the meaning must be 
 the very inside feeling and thinking of it all. Isn t 
 it?" 
 
 God, and his word. Dr. North had never had it 
 presented to him quite so before. 
 
 It was a child s perception, a child s unstudied ex 
 pression ; but it went as deep as the mystic proem to the 
 gospel of St. John. 
 
 Dr. North would not contradict it. His materialism 
 was greatly in his own way, but he would not puzzle 
 this fresh nature with it not just now, at any rate. 
 
 "That opens a long research and argument," he said. 
 "You haven t got into the complications yet. I think 
 you are a great deal better off just where you are." 
 
 " I am just as happy as I can be ! " said Estabel, with 
 a spring in her voice. "I ve been among the flowers 
 and the rainbows ! " 
 
 Was that pure childish? Dr. North wondered. How 
 much would she probably have to outgrow ? And how 
 long would it take her ? 
 
 Then he remembered Mrs. Trubin and her rainbows, 
 which he perceived were most likely just what Estabel 
 had meant. And Mrs. Trubin was seventy- two years 
 old.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 
 
 "MAY I bring my dearest friend in Topthorpe to 
 stay with me in Stillwick ? " 
 
 That was the question Estabel put at the end of her 
 letter to Aunt Esther, just when the final arrangements 
 were making for her summer visit. 
 
 And Miss Charlock wrote back, at the end of hers: 
 "What does your other aunt say? You know I don t 
 meddle with any of your Topthorpe affairs." 
 
 "I know it, auntie," Estabel rejoined. "This isn t 
 Topthorpe at all, though it s in Topthorpe. It s a 
 separate thing. Aunt Vera allowed it on condition of 
 its being separate. Lilian has nothing to do with 
 Mount Street or Mr. Satterwood s or Scalchi s. She s 
 just as separate as she can be. You couldn t mix her 
 up with them. Stillwick is the only thing that is good 
 enough for her. " 
 
 " Chooty-choo ! " ejaculated Miss Charlock when she 
 read that. "Seems to me valuations have risen in Still 
 wick, and taxes are going to be according." But her 
 eyes shone, and she laughed, and her last note accepted 
 the tax. 
 
 Lilian Hawtree was to come. Aunt Esther was to 
 be in Topthorpe on a certain Wednesday, and both girls 
 were to go home with her. Estabel s portmanteau and 
 a handsome, capacious traveling-bag with which Mrs. 
 Clymer had provided her would carry all she would 
 need in Stillwick. Her trunk, full of newer and finer 
 things, would go to Pequant with Aunt Vera s to await 
 her coming there in August.
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 179 
 
 Aunt Vera had offered to send her sister-in-law-in- 
 law and Estabel back to Stillwick in her own carriage; 
 but when it appeared that there was to be this third 
 passenger she accepted Miss Charlock s announced inten 
 tion of arranging the little journey in her own way, not 
 realizing exactly what that way would be. 
 
 Miss Charlock arrived, driven by Mr. Simon Peter 
 Babson, in that gentleman s one-horse, two-seated, can 
 vas-covered wagon, the canvases rolled up at the sides 
 and back, as befitted the summer weather; and this 
 primitive equipage drew up beside the marble carriage 
 block in front of 84, where the great grays and the 
 barouche were wont to stamp and glitter in the eyes of 
 the vicinage. 
 
 Archibald carried out the bag and portmanteau. 
 Mrs. Clymer kissed Estabel somewhat hastily in the 
 doorway, and then retreated to hold herself on edge, as 
 it were, till Mr. Babson s "Gaw-wan! " sounded per 
 emptorily to his "ewe-necked bay, " giving time between 
 the deliberate syllables for equine realization and com 
 pliance ; and the slightly rickety wheels, that slanted 
 leisurely to right and left from the irksome perpendicu 
 lar, rattled with twist and jerk out of the paved gutter. 
 Aunt Vera comforted herself with the recollection that 
 her nearest neighbors were already out of town, and 
 that up and down the street blinds and shutters were 
 largely sported against the heat. 
 
 Nobody in Mr. Babson s wagon minded the heat much 
 that afternoon. Aunt Esther was reticently very happy ; 
 so much so that she was positively glum and impassible 
 in outward bearing, and left the talk mostly to the two 
 young girls and Simon Peter Babson, who entertained 
 them on the way with news and descriptions, the one 
 for Estabel, coming back to old haunts and familiar 
 associations, the other for her friend, strange as yet to 
 all the charm and consequence of Stillwick, for which he 
 held himself at present responsibly representative.
 
 180 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 As to these two, the summer breeze, sweeping through 
 under the wagon roof, and the outspread of the beauti 
 ful world into which they were escaping, neutralized all 
 oppression of the July day, and spared them all impa 
 tience or even consciousness of the slow, clattering pace 
 at which they were drawn along by the lean old nag, 
 who seemed, stretching forward his scraggy neck as into 
 indefinite distance, to strive to get there sooner with 
 his head than with his heels, and needed constantly to 
 be supplied with dynamic force by Simon Peter s me 
 chanically reiterated "Ge-ed up! " and "Gaw-wan! " 
 
 They had called in Shawme Street for Lilian; it was 
 directly on their way. Her modest box had been slipped 
 in under the seat with Estabel s portmanteau. Lilian 
 herself was placed behind as guest with Miss Charlock, 
 while Estabel took the front beside Mr. Babson. They 
 waved and kissed good-by to the Gladmother, standing 
 half hidden among her ferns at her side window that 
 overlooked the gate and dooryard. In a few minutes 
 more they were on the long bridge ; and then they left 
 the Shawme behind and struck off through the edges of 
 Roystonport and Lexbridge, and by and by into Marsden 
 Marches. 
 
 With the first plunge into the Great Marsden Woods, 
 through which the high road lay, with the first smell of 
 the azalea blooms floating out from the dark, distant 
 swamps, began the ecstasy of the new life. 
 
 "Didn t I tell you, Lilian?" cried Estabel trium 
 phantly. 
 
 "No you didn t. You couldn t. It had to tell 
 itself. " 
 
 Simon Peter understood, in his homely way. "Them 
 pinks is ojerous, " he said complacently. "Thiz a 
 place out here, a ways, where we can git some." 
 
 "They 11 wilt," said Miss Charlock. 
 
 "No, they won t. I won t let em. I ve kerried 
 em home afore now. You won t mind a little wet
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LIMES. 181 
 
 moss under foot, jest between us, will ye, Estabel? 
 You 11 only hev ter keep them small trotters o yourn 
 a leetle to one side." 
 
 P^stabel laughed. "I d rather sit on my feet all the 
 way than not have them, " she said. 
 
 So presently a great armful of the wild, beautiful 
 things, in the straggly protection of their own shrubby 
 branches, was heaped between the forward occupants of 
 the vehicle and the low dasher, and bearing away with 
 them the fragrant atmosphere of the hidden fens, the 
 dim, untrodden places out of which a pure blessedness 
 distilled itself so widely. 
 
 "They are own cousins to the rhododendrons," said 
 Estabel. 
 
 " But oh, how white they are, and how sweet ! " said 
 Lilian. 
 
 "It s a dreadful sweet time o year," said Mr. Bab- 
 son. "The lilies is all aout in the gyardins, Estabel; 
 and the elderblows is comin on, down by the brook; 
 and the pond lilies why, Henslee Pools an the East 
 Bend is jest shinin with em. It s a mighty pooty 
 season to come to Stillwick." 
 
 Lilian leaned over and rested her lips with a quick, 
 soft touch on Estabel s shoulder. 
 
 "I never had anything like it before," she said, 
 "except in breaths and dreams. Everything is coming 
 true. I suppose Gladmother would say everything true 
 is coming out. It has been there all the time. That s 
 the wonder of it. I m so glad! " 
 
 Miss Esther Charlock watched the young girl, listen 
 ing to her words as to something like a bird warble or 
 a water ripple. It was all in keeping with the "sweet 
 time o the year." She had expected nothing like this 
 out of Topthorpe. The self-repression in her face re 
 laxed into a pleased reception. 
 
 "Victory Speerin is goin to be merried, " Simon 
 Peter suddenly informed Estabel. Marsden and Still-
 
 182 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 wick were not all swamps and woods and meadows, 
 sweet as the things that grow in these might be. There 
 was life and civilization and human event also. "You 
 remember Victory ? Well, they re baound to make 
 a great time of it. She s goin to live in Peaceport. 
 He keeps a store there. They do say her settin -aout 
 beats all. Her mother s cousin got the things daoun 
 to Noo Yawk. Topthorpe war n t smart enough. 
 Them Speerins hev ben slavin , an sparin , an savin , 
 ever sence she was born ; an naow it s all lanched aout." 
 Simon Peter s Yankeeisms grew more pronounced as his 
 meanings became more emphatic. "She s got a showy 
 kind of a feller; had some money left him, so they tell, 
 and helps run a smart concern. Wedd n s to be in 
 church, an a collection afterwards. Things to eat, to 
 home, I mean. Hired waiters from Peaceport. Some 
 how nuther, them Speerins liez got hold of haow ter 
 dew things s fur forth s ter last em over this job, 
 anyhaow. Oh, say! Didger aunt tell ye we re goin 
 to hev a niew minister? Thiz considderble stir baout 
 that, tew." 
 
 "Oh, don t!" said Estabel. "All that spoils the 
 swamp pinks and the pond lilies so! " 
 
 Aunt Esther felt suddenly abashed in her secret 
 thought of amused complacency that things could be 
 done in one place as well as in another ; and that mat 
 ters of distinctive consequence in Topthorpe and with 
 the Clymers could be reduced to their essential absurdity 
 in Stillwick and by the Speerings. 
 
 "After all, it s folks not things nor ways nor 
 places, " she said oracularly ; adding without very appar 
 ent relevance or connection, "and there s a water-level 
 everywhere, which accounts for swamps and ditches as 
 well as for Lake Champlain or the Mediterranean." 
 And then she asked Lilian friendly questions, and told 
 Estabel of Henslee Place and Cousin Lucy, and man 
 aged to elbow Simon Peter out of the conversation.
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 183 
 
 Two hours later Lilian Hawtree was at home in Still- 
 wick, settled joyously in the opposite little dormer 
 room to Estabel, under the like elm shadow, through 
 which the orioles flitted and sang their tender twilight 
 songs. The girls spoke softly across to each other, or 
 made their own quiet Sittings back and forth, sharing 
 and exchanging their delights. The only difference be 
 tween their lodgments was that one side window was to 
 the east, the other to the west. Lilian would have 
 the early shining of the day, Estabel the afternoon 
 and evening radiance. Was this augury ? Not alto- 
 together; each had outlook also toward the wide, warm 
 south, and the fulfilling noontide. 
 
 In a certain way, Estabel had outgrown the kitchen 
 garden romance. Bean vines and cornstalks could not 
 quite so sufficiently represent her widening world her 
 deepening life, rather, that was more fully reaching into 
 and realizing itself and its world-wide, absolute rela 
 tion. There were beginnings in her of something larger 
 than even any possible acted story; that certainly could 
 not be put on in fanciful pretense ; that would never 
 be satisfied with any simulance. There is an age, differ 
 ing greatly with individuals, when girls put away their 
 dolls, or think they do, and must have actual, living 
 interests. The replacement maybe only in form; many 
 a woman plays baby house to the end of her days. Es 
 tabel s dolls had not been of the baby house sort; they 
 had been but representations, but they had represented 
 something of interior reality. 
 
 The morning after they had come to Stillwick she led 
 Lilian down to the brook; on into the sweet gloom of 
 the pines, lightened by the sun filtering through clumps 
 of delicate-leaved, white-stemmed birches. It was a 
 fairy wood ; Lilian sighed and smiled with soft delight. 
 
 "It reaches all the way to Henslee Place and back 
 over the brook to the Red Ledges," Estabel told her 
 as they sat down upon a lichen-cushioned rock under a
 
 184 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 close covert, whence they could just catch the dancing 
 sparkle of the little leaping stream that scampered over 
 a bed of stones round an out-cropping knoll that elbowed 
 it into the open. 
 
 From the path they had left, a whistle sounded ; evi 
 dently it appeared in answer to Estabel s voice, over 
 heard, though the speaker could not have been overseen. 
 
 "All the way to Henslee Place is no such immense 
 distance, Estabel. I m here, you see, hunting you out 
 already. I wanted one of the old days. I did not 
 know you had other company, " Harry Henslee added, 
 as his quick, strong step crackled through the short 
 brush, and he came round and stood before them, rais 
 ing his hat with a more formal greeting. 
 
 "Can t do it as to the days. Have to keep mak 
 ing new ones all the time. Mr. Harry Henslee, let me 
 introduce you to my friend, Miss Lilian Hawtree." 
 
 Lilian stood up, on the lower slope of the rock, her 
 hat in her hand, the light air stirring her bright locks, 
 the sunshine sifting down upon them and powdering 
 them with gold. The color of a wild rose was in her 
 cheeks; the dew of the morning was in her pool-brown 
 eyes ; a real wild rose, just gathered, was at her throat, 
 its stem slipped through the golden circlet that she 
 almost always wore. Her straight, slim figure in its 
 pretty dimity gown, narrow ruffled at throat and wrist 
 and hem, and belted in at the waist with a dark green 
 ribbon like that which was knotted about the hat she 
 held, and dropped its flutter of cool color against the 
 white folds of her skirt, made the daintiest of pictures 
 in its simple grace, and fitted singularly to its wild- 
 wood setting. 
 
 After a second s pause Harry Henslee spoke. He 
 very nearly forgot to make ordinary response. The 
 introduction was more a revelation than a formality. 
 
 "I didn t mean to interrupt," he said. "I ought 
 to beg your pardon, Miss Hawtree."
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 185 
 
 Estabel had never heard just that tone of deference in 
 Harry s speech before. 
 
 "For being an older friend of Estabel s than I am? " 
 asked Lilian, with a bright, frank smile. "If any one 
 is in the way, I think it must be I." 
 
 "Then I may stay?" 
 
 "Of course, Harry. Help us to make the new day. 
 Every day now is bran-spick-and-span new to me 
 just as if I never had had Stillwick before. I never 
 did, with Lilian in it." 
 
 "I guess you know how good Estabel is, Mr. Hens- 
 lee," said Lilian. Her smile bewildered the young 
 fellow yet more. Estabel laughed out. 
 
 "I don t believe you can impose me upon Harry," 
 she said. "He knows my iniquities of old. And yet 
 he does n t know me with Lilian in my life, any more 
 than I did Stillwick. I am finding myself out, delight 
 fully ; perhaps he will." 
 
 Harry Henslee glanced from one to the other. Cer 
 tainly a new tone, a new poise, showed Estabel to him 
 as he had not hitherto seen her. She spoke, moved, 
 as in her own right. Alone, in the old days, she had 
 been an unformed personality, an uncertain quantity. 
 Now she seemed to have found supplement and relation. 
 It was quite another girl who stood here, free and 
 happy, unscorned and unscorning, companioned to her 
 heart s satisfying, from her who had, as he thought, 
 made little of herself in Topthorpe, and who before, in 
 Stillwick, had not really begun to be. It was a new 
 creature in a new day. It was as wonderful a disclos 
 ure as that of the lovely cause that was seemingly 
 working the wonder. 
 
 They wandered through the woods together by a way 
 Estabel did not remember; it took them farther than 
 her ordinary range, and brought them by and by to 
 where they struck the brook again, which had thrown 
 a long loop around a sunny meadow. They crossed its
 
 186 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 deepened water where it narrowed in the cleft of a great 
 boulder, whose sloping halves leaned their crests toward 
 each other from either side, so nearly closing that a 
 long, firm step midway, between a climb and a descent, 
 might accomplish the passage. Hence they followed 
 the shining guidance of the stream between woodside 
 and open ; the wide level of the latter stretching away 
 at their left, sheeted like snow with the frail white 
 blossoms of the sagittaria. Lilian s exclamation of de 
 light was passionate. 
 
 "Is it asphodel?" she cried. "I never never 
 saw anything like that before ! " 
 
 "It is arrowhead," said Harry. "I don t know 
 what asphodel is like." 
 
 "Nor I," said Lilian, "except that it grows in fields 
 of heaven. I said asphodel by instinct; it is so ex 
 quisite and pure." 
 
 "Asphodel," repeated Harry after her. "It is a 
 pretty name. It ought to be among girls names." 
 
 That was the way he said it. To himself, he thought 
 suddenly, "Why didn t they call her Asphodel? " 
 
 "It rhymes to Estabel, " remarked the young lady of 
 that name demurely. 
 
 "Yes rhymes," said Harry. "A rhyme is a kind 
 of echo." 
 
 "I m glad even to echo to anything so exquisite 
 and pure, " returned the girl with a yet aggravated de- 
 mureness. 
 
 Was it a mischievous thought-reading or had the 
 same intuitive suggestion come to both? 
 
 Harry reddened a little. Estabel reverted easily to 
 matter of fact. "We won t pick them," she said; 
 "they wilt so quickly." 
 
 "Pick them ! " exclaimed Lilian. "It would be a sin. 
 I wouldn t touch their pretty lives for anything." 
 
 "But we are going to pick lilies," said Harry Hens- 
 lee, wondering perhaps what reconcilement she would
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 187 
 
 make. There was something in this Lilian Hawtree 
 that he would like to understand. Usually he was 
 content to take people upon the surface, to like or dis 
 like to judge or misjudge without much labor of 
 comprehension. It was this that Estabel had found 
 hard, unfair, in him. 
 
 "Oh, that is different," was Lilian s response. "It 
 is easy to make them happy. Their world is only 
 water. They will be just as alive, and live just as 
 long, if you float them in a basin, as they would do in 
 a pond. But you can t put back a field or wood flower 
 into its element. It will miss its mothering and its 
 place." 
 
 " You are wearing a wild rose, Miss Hawtree ? " 
 He said it interrogatively, as if she could give a reason, 
 not to confuse her. He recognized in her already a 
 simplicity that would not be confused, that there was 
 no risk of confounding. 
 
 "Yes. Estabel gave it to me; so I put it on to keep 
 it safe, and because it was so sweet. I believe I know 
 what I had better do with it. " 
 
 She drew the flower from its fastening, held it gently 
 to her face and breathed its breath ; then she stooped 
 down and dropped it softly upon the bosom of the brook. 
 It floated off, smiling up in pink and golden freshness 
 as it drifted. 
 
 "It will last longer so, and it will be sweet to the 
 end," she said. 
 
 They walked till they came to where the brook fell 
 down a sudden rocky incline, and broadened to the fill 
 ing of a wide hollow like a little lake ; this was one of 
 the Upper Pools. It was shining with water lilies, as 
 Simon Peter Babson had described. 
 
 Harry got great bunches of them, and of their pink- 
 streaked, olive buds. The girls were presently carrying 
 over their arms the drooping sheaves whose gathered 
 stems were more than their hands could clasp.
 
 188 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "We will make a lily pond in a big tub on the back 
 platform, under the maples," said Estabel. 
 
 "And sit there while the lilies last," added Lilian. 
 
 "Or until Monday, when Mrs. Bleecher will want 
 her tubs and washing-place," Estabel amended. 
 
 "Don t be so horribly prosaic," remonstrated Harry 
 Henslee. 
 
 Estabel opened her eyes wide at him. "As since 
 when?" she demanded. "And since when has my 
 poetry left off being rubbish ? " And Harry laughed. 
 
 "Matter out of place is rubbish, whether prose or 
 poetry, " he retorted. 
 
 " Lilian, " said Estabel gravely, " I have always been 
 matter out of place, one way or another, ever since I was 
 born. " 
 
 Harry was not sure whether she were really hurt or 
 not. He moved nearer to her side, and walked on with 
 her. "You don t mind? " he said. 
 
 "Being out of place? No; I m used to it. I sim 
 ply intend some time to make my own place." 
 
 She lifted up her head with anything but a snubbed 
 comportment, and laughed frankly. 
 
 "I think there s not the slightest doubt you will," 
 Harry answered her, making admiring amende. Her 
 pluck was what the boy involuntarily gave homage to. 
 But a girl a woman does not care to win by pluck. 
 
 They had walked slowly back to the boulder rocks, 
 and crossed them to the wood shadow. Here they 
 rested, looking back upon the brook and over into the 
 white-blossomed meadow. Lilian arranged her name 
 sake flowers. She twisted two long stems around her 
 golden brooch; two pink- white, sunny-hearted, half 
 open buds dropped their graceful heads against her 
 bosom. In her lap lay the loose coil, among which her 
 fingers played lovingly, turning upward the sweet faces 
 that looked and breathed their incomparable freshness 
 into her own, as it leaned over them.
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 189 
 
 "They suit you," Harry Henslee said. 
 
 Lilian took the word of compliment, if it were such, 
 as simply as a child. 
 
 "Indeed, they do," she answered. "They look so 
 happy and content. The poor rose would have been all 
 dead by now. I m glad it floated off alive." And 
 then her eyes, lifted from her lilies, went with the re 
 minder straight past the boy s admiring face, and rested 
 on the delightsome white expanse of the great field of 
 growing flowers beyond. 
 
 "It s such a comfort," she said presently, "to think 
 that all this is only a little of it, after all." 
 
 "Why! Why? " exclaimed and interrogated Es- 
 tabel. 
 
 "Because it does not make us discontented to go 
 back to a little less. Because we see that a little gives 
 us the feeling of all the rest, that perhaps we never can 
 see; and ever so little is enough for that." 
 
 Neither of the others answered. There is never 
 much to answer when a clear truth has been simply 
 spoken. 
 
 "I should just like to see her see the rest," said 
 Harry Henslee to himself. 
 
 It was almost Aunt Esther s early dinner time. Es- 
 tabel reminded them of that, and they all retraced the 
 woodland path together to the foot of the little home 
 orchard. There Harry said good-by, declining invita 
 tion to come in and have luncheon with them. Some 
 how, though he did not say so, common eating and 
 drinking indoors would not just yet suit him after such 
 a morning. 
 
 He walked home through the long wood way again, 
 feeling, rather than thinking, how the best of the old 
 days had been in this, and something more. He did 
 not try to discover what had been the new spell which 
 had made everything so exceedingly delightful. He 
 was at an age when the boy begins to feel the strong
 
 190 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 flush of his manhood, hut when the man asks the boy no 
 questions. He was just the younger side of twenty. 
 
 He only thought that Estabel Charlock was nicer 
 than ever; that Topthorpe had done something for her 
 after all ; and that the very nicest of her had discovered 
 and taken to herself in Topthorpe this new friendship. 
 And still he was rather more than ever of the opinion 
 that to Topthorpe in general she never would quite fit 
 herself. 
 
 He hardly cared to learn just where she had found 
 Lilian. Not at Scalchi s, nor anywhere among the 
 young e lite whom he knew well. Elite? she was a girl 
 who might fit anywhere that she would care to he. It 
 would he she who would elect, not need to be elected. 
 For the first time he discerned that the elegance he 
 valued was election ; a choosing by natural affinities the 
 sweetest and the best; and that the cultivated grace 
 aaid breeding which assumed itself might but assume at 
 second hand. He did not want to know just yet who 
 Lilian Hawtree s father might be, or in what street she 
 
 lived. 
 
 
 
 " How did you find Estabel ? " Aunt Lucy asked of 
 him at dinner. 
 
 "In the woods." 
 
 "Of course," answered the lady, smiling. "That 
 was the likely where. But how herself? " 
 
 "Oh, very much herself. More and better. Re 
 vised and improved." 
 
 "Illustrated?" 
 
 "If you mean in the way of picture prettiness, I 
 should say no ; not fully. And yet " 
 
 "Estabel will never be pretty. She will be beyond 
 that, if anything." 
 
 "I guess that was what I meant to say. Estabel is 
 very possible, but she doesn t quite come to pass." 
 
 "What may come to pass with her takes time."
 
 ASPHODEL AND WATER LILIES. 191 
 
 "That s a pity, isn t it? A girl s time isn t so 
 very long." 
 
 "A woman s is or any human being s. But what 
 about her friend ? What is she like ? " 
 
 "Miss Hawtree? Well, it strikes me that she is a 
 new kind of a girl altogether." 
 
 That was frank, but ambiguous. Miss Henslee did 
 not know exactly what to make of it. But she asked 
 no further questions.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 
 
 " I WISH you would let me trim a bonnet, " said 
 Lilian to Aunt Esther. 
 
 They were sitting in the shop. It was a rainy day. 
 The two girls were to have gone to Henslee Place, but 
 the weather had rendered that out of the question. 
 
 Estabel was listless, restless. She could not easily 
 pass from a planned intent to an improvised alternative. 
 She watched the clouds and the downpour a furious 
 summer deluge standing at the sashed door of en 
 trance from the street. Nobody would enter, any more 
 than go out, to-day. 
 
 Lilian sat by Miss Charlock s side in the cosy, car 
 peted square space behind the counters, which zigzagged 
 through the length of the apartment in this fashion : 
 
 At the front the outer door gave passage; at the side 
 another communicated with the dwelling across the lit 
 tle hall. In the farther corner a small open fireplace,
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 193 
 
 with a basket grate, furnished cheer and warmth in 
 winter. Now it was filled with boughs, green flags, 
 and cat-o -nine tails. A round table for work stood 
 in the middle of the home square, as Estabel had chris 
 tened it ; and shelves from floor to ceiling a part of 
 them for boxes and folded goods, and a part for the 
 books of the little circulating library occupied every 
 available wall space in both sections. The jog in the 
 counter was formed by the flap-leaf, for passage; set 
 between retaining boards at the ends of the counters 
 proper, to keep it clear from encroach. Aunt Esther 
 was insistently methodical. 
 
 It was a very compact, well-contrived little duplex 
 establishment, very much on the Boffin principle. The 
 home part was exclusive ; very few were invited to come 
 therein. The divisions of business and privacy were as 
 pronounced as those of Wall Street and Fifth Avenue. 
 Behind that counter-swing Miss Charlock was of the 
 best position in Stillwick. In the very face of her 
 trade her dignity was patent. 
 
 "I wish you would let me trim a bonnet." 
 
 " Do you think you could ? Estabel, I wish you 
 would come in out of the shop and sit down." 
 
 "I will if Lilian is going to trim a bonnet. I d 
 like to watch her, and to see you watch." 
 
 "You idle child!" 
 
 "It wouldn t be idleness. It would be a most im 
 proving study in evolution and moral effect." 
 
 "Chooty-choo!" 
 
 "That means, Lilian, being interpreted, Choose 
 your choose! All frippery is open to you. Whose bon 
 net is it to be? I 11 give you the personality you are 
 to adapt to. Is it Mrs. Listenhard s, auntie, or Miss 
 Chattery Glib s? One ought to be well set off at the 
 ears and wide in the flare, and the other very easy in 
 the strings and bobby as to the topknot. One ought 
 to express I want to know, and the other I can tell 
 you all about it, for I was knowin to the whole.
 
 194 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Estabel! If you let yourself mimic, and twist peo 
 ple s names, you 11 do it to their faces some time, be 
 fore you think." 
 
 "They wouldn t see themselves if you held up a 
 looking-glass. And I m sure it isn t a far fetch from 
 Lisnard to my proper pronunciation of that ; and as 
 for Charity Gibb, if she isn t Chattery Glib, she isn t 
 anything." 
 
 Miss Charlock turned to Lilian. "It shall not be 
 for anybody in particular. You shall do it as you like, 
 and we 11 see who 11 choose it." 
 
 "I don t believe a single person in Stillwick will. 
 It will be right over all their heads, like that lecture 
 at the Lyceum last week, " persisted Estabel. 
 
 "That would be an impossible success," said Lilian, 
 laughing. "Oh, that pretty new straw! You aren t 
 going to risk that with me ? " 
 
 "When I trust anybody, I trust them with some 
 thing. Pick out your ribbon. Do you want flowers? " 
 
 "Are there any real ones? I mean copies of real 
 flowers. If I had time and the things, I would make 
 some." 
 
 "Make some!" 
 
 "Yes; I ve learned. It s pretty work. There was 
 a Madame Saurelle who came to Topthorpe to try and 
 make a business of it. She went to New York after 
 a little while. But she boarded with a friend of Glad- 
 mother s in Clover Street, and we knew her very well. 
 She taught me. She never made what we call French 
 flowers those fine little any-sorts of things. She 
 said she despised artificielles, and that we never got the 
 real French art here. She made real roses, that you 
 wanted to smell ; and heliotropes and pansies and pop 
 pies, and oh ! such geraniums pelargoniums, they call 
 them now with their beautiful curly, downy, or shiny- 
 green leaves ! Her bouquets de corsage were wonder 
 ful. One couldn t have worn them out of doors in
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 195 
 
 summer for fear of the bees. But her things had. to be 
 so very dear that there were not people enough to buy 
 them. It seems to me she might have made them 
 cheaper, only her life had to be so dear. She had a 
 sick daughter, and a wretched son somewhere and 
 I don t know but a husband who always had to have 
 money to run away with somewhere else. So her time 
 was very expensive. Anybody who had a home and 
 a little bit of some independent work or money might 
 make it help out beautifully. Gladmother thought it 
 was good for me to know, and I am sure it was very 
 pleasant." 
 
 All through the recital of this little episode Lilian s 
 busy fingers had been turning over with delicate touches 
 the contents of ribbon and flower boxes which Miss 
 Charlock took down from the shelves and placed before 
 her. 
 
 " Oh, what a lovely violet ! " she exclaimed, unrolling 
 an end of satin-striped "lutestring." "And here is 
 some creamy white, striped just like it. Have you 
 any black trimming lace ? " 
 
 " Plen-ty o that! " Miss Charlock answered, with an 
 inimitable intonation of her own which she was wont to 
 use to indicate an abounding certainty. And down 
 came another box, whose plenty consisted of three or 
 four folds, of as many yards each, of the article de 
 sired. Probably it was one that had long waited a 
 demand, and as dead value magnified itself to Miss 
 Charlock s business estimate. 
 
 Lilian found a piece of a light leaf pattern whose 
 outline formed its graceful edge. 
 
 " Why, Miss Charlock ! What exquisite choice you 
 have ! " she exclaimed, as she drew it forth in its length 
 and laid it lightly upon the rippling violet ribbon. 
 
 "Well, I know what I think s handsome in lace 
 or anything else," returned the lady. "But Stillwick 
 don t always agree with me. I ve had that purple
 
 196 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 ribbon four or five years. They call it a half mournin 
 color here; and there ain t many half mourners. They 
 can t have so many changes. They get over it all at 
 once, when they begin. And the young girls all want 
 pink and blue and scarlet and figured anything but 
 yuller. Yuller s darkies color, they say; only they 
 call it by the other word for darky." 
 
 "Why, yellow is beautiful! It is the sunshine color. 
 You don t want a glare of it, but just a lighting up, 
 or a single bright little flash. I should just like to 
 show you, some time. Now my heart is fixed on this 
 violet and the lace. Only there isn t a flower here 
 that will quite do. I ivish I had some purple asters! " 
 
 "Well, there ain t almost anything that isn t laid 
 by in an old milliner s shop. I bought some things at 
 a selling out, the only solitary time I ever was in New 
 York, and there they ve been. Folks called em stiff; 
 the fashion s been so long for things traily and droopy, 
 and long-endy, hangin off on one side ; and I never 
 could seem to work it in so s t they d go." 
 
 Miss Charlock climbed to the top of her library steps, 
 which she wheeled in through the counter gap, and 
 placed before the remotest range of shelves, from the 
 topmost of which she presently reached down a large 
 flat box with a very dusty cover. 
 
 " Here, Estabel ! Take this, and carry it steady and 
 brush it off out of the back window, where the rain 
 won t drive in." 
 
 Dusted and opened, it revealed to Lilian s delighted 
 eyes the very "real things " she had sighed for. "Why, 
 these might be Madame Saurelle s own," she said. 
 There were asters of dark and pale purples, and of pure 
 white ; there were chrysanthemums, white, brown, 
 golden ; there were grasses and clover-heads, and gay 
 columbines. None of them could be made droopy or 
 traily; they stood up bright and strong, except for the 
 bending of the grass-tops and the delicately nodding 
 spurred corollas of the Aquilegia.
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 197 
 
 An empty box upon a stool made a low work tray; 
 into it went the lace and the ribbon and the aster flow 
 ers, white lining silk, muslin "foundation." Lilian 
 began at once to fit brim facing and cut "bias " for the 
 frill. 
 
 She had got her lap full and was literally immersed 
 in her pretty occupation, when the door from the hall 
 way opened and Harry Henslee, looking down from his 
 own height and that of the two inward steps, stood 
 upon the threshold. 
 
 "May I come? " he asked. "I sha n t spatter any 
 thing. I ve left my oilskin in the woodhouse. I 
 couldn t let the day be quite washed out of the week, 
 and I ve a message besides from Aunt Lucy. You re 
 to come to-morrow, weather or no. The woods will be 
 wet in the morning, even if it clears, but I m to bring 
 the carriage. There 11 be the chance of the walk back 
 by the little moon and the twilight. What are you 
 all up to ? " looking solely at Lilian with the drift of 
 color and light stuff about her. 
 
 "Making a bonnet." 
 
 "Seeing it made." 
 
 "I can help with the party of the second part." 
 
 "More likely to hinder." But Aunt Esther, as she 
 spoke, pulled a camp stool beside her from under the 
 counter, with contradictory permission. 
 
 "Lilian is never hindered," said Estabel. 
 
 "Because there aren t any hindrances," said Lilian. 
 "What interrupts only comes into a place of its own." 
 
 "That s nice doctrine. I guess your world s round, 
 Miss Hawtree." 
 
 "Isn t everybody s?" 
 
 "No. Or there are lots of people that don t suit 
 themselves to a round world or round places. They re 
 square pegs, that won t fit anywhere. So they re al 
 ways trying to square circles, which is exactly what 
 can t be done."
 
 198 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "If there are square pegs, there must be square places 
 somewhere," said Estabel. "Every angle fits its own 
 corner, if you can only find out where you go in the 
 puzzle. I like tangrams, when they work straight. 
 Only I don t like to be the odd piece." 
 
 "Of course you do; and of course you don t; and 
 usually they won t; and very often you are." 
 
 "Categorical," said Estabel. "And kindly." 
 
 "Of course. Meant so. Acknowledging your im 
 portance. When the odd piece is once set right, with 
 its angles accommodated, it s awfully right. Other 
 wise, it s awfully set and persistently in the way. For 
 myself, being of no particular importance, I d rather 
 slide round comfortably. It s the plan of the universe. 
 What should we do with square worlds and square or 
 bits? They simply could n t be." 
 
 "What nonsense! As if square and round hadn t 
 their proper relations ! With a radius of half the diam 
 eter, you can inscribe a circle in any square ; and with 
 half the diagonal, you can describe a circle round it. 
 And square is only another word for fair and true." 
 
 " Exactly so ; and all round means pretty much 
 the same thing; and the square being just as potential 
 to the round, I d rather describe the circle than turn 
 any severe angles. Give me a round earth and a gay 
 little ecliptic. I approve of things as they are." 
 
 "The Golden City lieth foursquare, " said Lilian 
 quietly. 
 
 "That we are to come to. Yes, perhaps. I have 
 no doubt there is a geometry that will make it all right. 
 In the meantime there does seem to be a little practical 
 and Biblical mixing up. You can t understand 
 which is the ruling principle or type. There s the 
 round earth, that cannot be moved ; and there are the 
 four corners of the earth, and the four quarters, and 
 the four winds, and the four seasons; and the four crea 
 tures with the four wings and four sides and four faces ;
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 199 
 
 and the four very queer wheels that went upon their 
 four sides, and turned not as they went; and yet they 
 had dreadful high rings, " 
 
 "Harry!" 
 
 "It s all there. I m in earnest. But I suppose 
 nobody pretends to know what it all means. And 
 there s a lot more somewhere else, about Solomon s 
 temple, and the round molten sea, and the round lavers, 
 and the square bases, and the twelve oxen that held up 
 the molten sea, and looked three to the north, and 
 three to the west, and three to the south, and three to 
 the east " 
 
 "You re only proving what I said, that the square 
 and the round are related and not opposed, " said Es- 
 tabel concisely. "And you re making nonsensical gib 
 berish out of it." 
 
 "Chooty-choo ! " interjected Miss Charlock. "You 
 don t either of you know what you re talking about, and 
 you 11 make Lilian spoil her bonnet." 
 
 "How did we get into all these morals and mathe 
 matics ? Who began it ? " demanded Estabel. 
 
 "The kettle began it. You boiled up, and said that 
 Miss Hawtree couldn t be hindered." 
 
 "And Lilian said that hindrances didn t hinder. 
 And then you proceeded to prove personally that they 
 did." 
 
 "I said that interruptions I mean things that come 
 along naturally, in the day s work were not hin 
 drances, because they were part of the plan, and had 
 their right of way. And besides, Mr. Henslee lost his 
 argument, for I was not even interrupted." 
 
 She held up on one hand in evidence the pretty straw, 
 in whose close little brim she had already set a line of 
 white silk facing, glistening softly through an edging 
 of narrow black lace. "Now I have the cape to make." 
 
 "There s got to be a kick to that," interposed 
 Aunt Esther.
 
 200 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "The last thing I should think of applying to a 
 bonnet, " said Harry. 
 
 "Nobody asked you to. Lilian knows what I mean. 
 It s the milliner s knack. And it isn t easy to get. 
 If you don t hit it, there won t be any air at all to the 
 whole thing." 
 
 "I m fair at football," remarked Harry in a subdued 
 manner. 
 
 "Miss Charlock means the line of expression. That 
 has to be kept to in the whole making. See here how 
 this brim slants slightly backward; and how the cut-off 
 of the crown follows the same slope ; now the frill 
 mustn t stick up nor hang down, but fall off accord 
 ingly; not stiffly, but with a light sweep of its own. 
 And then the flowers and the ribbon must be set on to 
 harmonize. If I were to put a bow, or fasten ends, at 
 right angles to the line of expression, it would be an 
 ugliness. Just as if you were to paint a picture with 
 a breeze in it, and make one thing blow one way and 
 another another." 
 
 "I told you so. Right angles are disastrous, in 
 manners, morals, and millinery. There s a law of 
 harmony in your work, Miss Hawtree." 
 
 "As there is in everything right angles and all. 
 You would n t build a house as you would trim a bon 
 net, " answered Lilian, smiling. 
 
 Her quick, dexterous fingers were rapidly putting 
 together the white silk plaiting, over which lay the 
 delicate tracery of the leaf-patterned lace ; with a few 
 strong, skillfully placed stitches which drew it close in 
 exactly the proper curves, she fastened it to the back 
 of the bonnet, setting it off with the mysterious "kick" 
 that even Harry could recognize now that it was illus 
 trated. 
 
 Lilian held it up again. "Isn t it light, and breezy, 
 and all of a mind and motion ? " she asked. 
 
 "You re making poetry of it," said Estabel.
 
 SQUARE AND ROUND. 201 
 
 "Wait till the asters bloom out on it, and I carry 
 these lovely ribbons along the line of expression. Don t 
 look at me while I do it. I don t mind, only I d like 
 yon to see it done, instead of doing. " 
 
 But Harry Henslee took the "don t mind " as license 
 for not minding, and watched the pretty process undis- 
 guisedly, until a little constellation of the asters arose 
 with white and purple gleam out of a cloud-like lace 
 shadow at precisely the right, gracefully effective point 
 above the left horizon brim, and violet and white rib 
 bons, drawn lightly back from the cluster around the 
 low, broad ci-own, were knotted together in the hollow 
 of the neck frill, escaping thence in their own latitude 
 to complete the "breezy line of expression." 
 
 "I told you it was going to be a poem! " exclaimed 
 Estabel, as Lilian affixed the strings to their corners 
 a violet and a white one and tied them, in their in 
 termingling tints, in a bewitching chin bow. "Every 
 bit of it is a rhyme and the whole is a reason." 
 
 "I like it," Lilian said simply, as she turned it 
 round on her uplifted wrist. "Do you, Miss Char 
 lock?" 
 
 "Yes, I do. Still an all, I tell you it s ahead of 
 time. The fashion hasn t caught up with it. It will, 
 of course. One of these days, they 11 find out that 
 flowers don t grow upside down, and a lively bird don t 
 always wear its plumes draggling. And then you won t 
 be able to stick things up high and straight enough, nor 
 get them of a tall enough kind. I ain t sixty yet, and 
 I may live to see mulleins and goldenrod and hard- 
 hack and feather dusters runnin up into the air on 
 women s heads. And maybe I shall get depraved 
 enough to admire em. There I ve said my say, 
 and now I 11 confess up candid you ve done a thing 
 clear away out of the common, an 1 couldn t have done 
 it, an I don t care if it don t sell. If ever you was to 
 be a regular milliner the style would follow you, instead
 
 202 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 of you the style; and I guess you re made that way in 
 most things." 
 
 Harry Henslee thought to himself that Aunt Esther s 
 head was level ; nevertheless, looking into Lilian Haw- 
 tree s pleased eyes, he wondered just a little at their 
 pleasure. It was not altogether at Miss Charlock s 
 brusque compliment, he knew, but a pure, essential 
 delight. 
 
 "You are as happy over these things as you were 
 over the water lilies and the meadow flowers, " he said 
 tentatively. 
 
 "Maybe not so happy, but just as really. Why not? 
 There isn t but one kind of pleasure, is there? Hav 
 ing things right and beautiful in their way, and doing 
 your work and taking your part in everything as rightly 
 and beautifully as you can. That s all the living there 
 is, Gladmother says; and it s all we re made alive 
 for." 
 
 "It s time for dinner," Miss Charlock remarked 
 briefly, rising to leave the shop. But Harry Henslee 
 made no move to leave. 
 
 "Mayn t I stay? " he asked Aunt Esther. 
 
 Life strikes many an unheeded prophetic little note. 
 A word, a trivial happening, gives hint, like a theme in 
 music, of something that is to be more or less recurrent 
 all the way along. 
 
 It was not the last time that Lilian Hawtree would 
 trim a bonnet for Aunt Esther. It was not the last 
 time that these three young persons would meet the 
 questions of their experience together, and find them 
 intervolved. 
 
 Nor was it the last time that Estabel Charlock would 
 be reminded of square pegs, and the misjoins of the 
 great Tangram Puzzle.
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 
 
 A MORXIXG carriage drive through the quiet villages 
 of Stillwick and The Corners brought the young people 
 to Henslee Place, where Aunt Lucy greeted them with 
 her cordial grace, and made them free of the wide, 
 beautiful house, since out-of-door pleasure would not be 
 practicable until the wet of the heavy rain should have 
 exhaled a little longer from the sweet-reeking fields and 
 woods. 
 
 Colonel Henslee, although not definitely ill, had 
 grown more infirm with the passing year, and now lived 
 altogether in his own rooms, where his deafness shielded 
 him from any invading sounds ; and this seclusion and 
 insured quiet rendered it possible for the young life 
 which Miss Lucy loved and drew around her to have 
 full enjoyment of its liberty in all the rest of the old 
 mansion. 
 
 Estabel led Lilian about and showed her all the 
 things that had delighted herself from early childhood ; 
 told her bits of household history, explained the pic 
 tures, and the associations of quaint old furnishings ; 
 especially they lingered, as Estabel had always done, be 
 fore the beautiful portrait in the hall. 
 
 Harry met them there at the foot of the staircase, 
 after a little visit in his grandfather s room. 
 
 "Isn t she lovely? " Estabel was asking in a low tone 
 as if in presence of the living original. And Lilian only 
 made a little sighing sound in answer. 
 
 "She is my father s mother," said Harry Henslee.
 
 204 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "And she is my father s aunt," Estabel Charlock 
 declared, with a sweet pride that she would never have 
 shown anybody else in her little world. 
 
 "How glad you must be! " 
 
 And it seemed to the three young things as if the 
 gracious face looked down upon them out of its past 
 with a new, responding smile. Who knows ? And who 
 knows if out of past or present ? For I believe that a 
 dear picture is now and then informed. 
 
 " May we go up into the big Press Chamber ? " Harry 
 asked Miss Henslee presently afterward. The idea 
 came so naturally, as we shall see, from this touch with 
 the old and proudly cherished. 
 
 "That means May we rummage there? Yes; with 
 discrimination and due respect, " Miss Henslee an 
 swered him. She had trusted the boy before, and with 
 all his love of frolic she knew both his reverence and 
 his discretion. 
 
 " I say, " he called to the two girls as he overtook 
 them in the long upper corridor with the keys, "we 11 
 have a Panorama of the Past in the gallery of the 
 dancing-room. There are old things that came from 
 England, court gowns, and wigs, and a British naval 
 uniform that belonged to Admiral Henslee, and no end 
 of petticoats and frills and plumes and caps and ker 
 chiefs, to say nothing of made-up character dresses that 
 have been worn at old balls and plays, and in tableaux. 
 The chests and wardrobes are brimful. We 11 be 
 everybody that ever was, that we have time to be." 
 
 "Where s the audience? " 
 
 " Hush ! How do we know ? " he whispered myste 
 riously. 
 
 "Do you suppose their gowns and wigs and furbelows 
 are all that is left of those fine old wise and splendid 
 folks? Don t you know every old house is full of em 
 coming and going, more or less, as they take an interest, 
 and people behave? They weren t the sort to forget
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 205 
 
 their old places, or not to look after their kin, even 
 though the stupid places and the kin may know them no 
 more. " 
 
 "I think that is true," said Lilian. "Only I sup 
 pose the sort of stories we hear about it are like fables, 
 false outside, but made about something real." 
 
 "You believe in ghosts?" Harry turned upon her 
 quickly. 
 
 "In spirits, certainly." 
 
 "Noises and apparitions? " 
 
 "It seems to me those are very feeble things. Spir 
 its are stronger : they are like wind, that bloweth 
 where it listeth. Where their thought is, there they 
 are. And spirits know when spirits come. Perhaps 
 our thought may sometimes find theirs, and call them." 
 
 "And that s why they talk about fetches. 
 
 "You are half in fun. But a fetch is a phantom 
 of a living person." 
 
 "And if spirits can be fetched, they must be living 
 persons." 
 
 "You are very right," she answered gravely. 
 
 But they were to have an audience in the flesh, and 
 more actors. 
 
 Carriages were heard rolling up the drive. "Oh, 
 dear ! visitors ! " exclaimed Estabel aggrievedly. 
 
 "Maybe it won t matter. Depends on who they 
 are," said Harry. "If we want them, we can have 
 them; if not, Aunt Lucy will take care of them." 
 
 They were a party from Peaceport, on their way to 
 the High Quarries, east of Stillwick village, Creston- 
 fielcls, Thornils, Paynes, and the young Chumleys ; half 
 a dozen young people, with chaperoning elders ; friends 
 of the Henslees, who had often filled the house as guests 
 for a day or days; driven round here now for a sum 
 mer call. 
 
 "Luncheon people; that goes without saying," said 
 Harry, watching from the corridor window, and catch-
 
 206 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 ing the merry self -announcements. "Aunt Lucy won t 
 be Aunt Lucy if she lets them off, and they knew it 
 when they made their programme. It will be called 
 luncheon by a polite fiction, which can be politely 
 accepted ; but it will be a transfigured dinner. We 
 shall sit round easily at the big table and at improvised 
 little ones, and take what is handed to us ; and you 
 will wish that dinner was always luncheon, and that 
 luncheon came three times a day. Meanwhile, we shall 
 have our audience. Our ghosts have sent substitutes." 
 
 With that he hurried down to do his part of the hos 
 pitality. 
 
 "I d rather have had the ghosts," said Estabel. 
 
 "They may not stay away," said Lilian. "We can 
 always act to them, like Napoleon s soldiers to the forty 
 centuries." 
 
 In a few minutes, with cheerful bustle, a laughing, 
 chatting group gathered in the old dancing-room, whose 
 echoes woke to their voices out of the deserted quiet, 
 like a welcome, indeed, from those other presences of 
 elder generations who had once received here, and 
 through multiplied local consanguinities might easily 
 hail some of these as kin. 
 
 "I told you so," whispered Harry, as Lilian re 
 marked to him the resonance. "There s a lot of em 
 here. We can draft off the vounger ones, as well as 
 not." 
 
 "Is your remark ambiguous ?" asked Estabel, over 
 hearing. 
 
 "Not at all. Direct, in sequence and significance." 
 
 The drafting was done, and after most merry robing 
 in the Press Chamber, the Panorama of the Past began. 
 
 At Harry s suggestion Estabel had been empowered 
 as Mistress of the Robes, with Lilian to assist her, that 
 there might be no confusion nor mishandling. Then, 
 from the list of subjects rapidly drawn up by Harry, 
 they had selected and hung carefully, in order of style
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 207 
 
 and personation, in the press along one whole side of 
 the room, the habits that illustrated, at familiar, sa 
 lient points, characters, times, and fashions, from the 
 days of the Tudors down to those of the Puritans in 
 Old and New England, and farther on to recent dates, 
 of which they had more local and immediate tradition. 
 
 Everything had been so exactly parceled and ticketed 
 in the putting away that the work was not difficult, and 
 in shorter time than could have been thought possible 
 the quaintly charming spectacle began to move through 
 the semi-circular musicians balcony, which overhung 
 the dancing-room, opening at either end by noiseless 
 double swing doors from the long corridor. 
 
 Luncheon was made a little late for both artistic 
 and domestic convenience, so that there remained more 
 than two hours for the performance. 
 
 Ned Chumley, in fult wig and powder and grand ju 
 dicial robes, inaugurated the show in a solemn advance 
 as "Edmund Cholmondeley, peer of the realm and Lord 
 High Chancellor of England in the reign of Henry the 
 Eighth. Nobody is to dispute anything, " added Harry 
 Henslee to his announcement made through a narrow 
 chink of the entrance door. "We haven t the exact 
 documents handy, but of course they are somewhere." 
 
 Next appeared "Katharine of Aragon and Cardinal 
 Wolsey, " pacing the stage with a slow stateliness, as in 
 sad and grave discourse. 
 
 Then came "Queen Elizabeth and her Mistress of 
 the Robes and Dame in Waiting, Lady Thornilshaugh ; 
 ancestress of our Thornils, - - the haugh dropped, 
 probably, when some younger son left the hedged land 
 in England, to come over here and help himself to free 
 forest." 
 
 Estabel was Queen Elizabeth, in ruff and farthingale 
 and jewels ; and carried herself, Harry told her after 
 ward, "with all the awful Tudor majesty; " perhaps be 
 cause her companion, one of those same august Thornils,
 
 208 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 assumed before the scenes an imperiousness which forced 
 the Queen s to a higher proportional point, and might 
 not improbably, behind them, have ventured some slight 
 ing of, or trespass upon the same subordinate authority 
 which it now fell to her, with a certain irony of dignity, 
 to represent. 
 
 They swept across the stage with much the mutual 
 air they might have had if the choleric Queen had just 
 privately boxed the ear of her haughty attendant ; 
 Harry, as Sir Walter Raleigh, meeting them at the 
 opposite end, and introducing the famous "cloak act." 
 Upon which, Queen Elizabeth trampled the rich gar 
 ment with such a truly regal emphasis that Sir "Walter, 
 feeling responsible, and perhaps not without a quickly 
 perceptive satisfaction in the propriety of limiting his 
 courtesy to royalty itself, withdrew it prudently and 
 bowed himself aside, letting mv Lady Thornilshaugh 
 walk off through the suppositions puddle. 
 
 Somehow, though he might reprehend Estabel s 
 "square corners," he never really allowed anybody else 
 to be square-cornered with her. 
 
 Followed, Amy Robsart and- Janet Foster Elsie 
 Crestonfield and Lilian ; the lovely Countess in all her 
 innocent bravery, donned for her Earl s coming; the 
 Puritan girl in demure brown gown, cap and kerchief, 
 prim and sweet. 
 
 Leicester and the varlet Varney; Tressilian, in 
 sober russet ; the Queen and Amy, in the pleasance of 
 the castle. The Maiden Monarch s reign and u Kenil- 
 worth " were rich and tempting for continuous tableaux 
 which everybody recognized. 
 
 Then they dropped suddenly down into the story of 
 the Stuarts ; and there was " Mistress Cicely Hawtree, 
 North Country maiden, one of the several who hid 
 or helped off bonny Prince Charlie in his many hair 
 breadth scapes; " grasping his hand and hurrying him 
 eagerly along as to some secret nook of refuge, while he
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 209 
 
 hung back and recklessly delayed, to drop on one knee 
 and gallantly kiss the fair round wrist. 
 
 There was "Admiral Blake of the Protectorate," in 
 the Admiral Henslee uniform of a half century or more 
 later but that did not matter. Afterward, the 
 " Duke of Monmouth, " in plumed helmet and hauberk 
 of pasteboard with inconsistent ruffles of fine cambric, 
 " and the Fair Maids of Taunton, " with their offerings 
 of flowers and Bible. 
 
 Gently along the stage glided a graceful, girlish figure 
 in stomacher and hood, declared as "My Lady of Hens- 
 leigh 1-e-i-g-h of Hensleigh Abbey, Warwickshire ; 
 whence came down the name a good way down into 
 republican conditions, a plainer spelling, and practical, 
 every-day American life. My Lady of Hensleigh," 
 Harry repeated, with an involuntary pleased dwelling on 
 the name, at which he caught himself and blushed hotly 
 in the crack of the door, very safely out of observation. 
 
 Lilian did not blush, nor think of need; her sweet, 
 large eyes, all unconstrained by any consciousness save 
 of the English lady of high degree and long ago, looked 
 out from their wimpled shelter and met the flashlight 
 of sudden curiosity lifted in those keener eyes below as 
 innocently and unwittingly as a child. 
 
 The Peaceport matrons followed her lovely movement 
 from her pause before them till she disappeared ; then 
 there was a significant slight rustle, and without other 
 perceptible expression a telepathic query ran around, 
 which responded to itself as instantly, while the alert 
 but well-controlled observers settled back into their 
 seats. "Seventeen perhaps and not twenty. Ab 
 surd, of course. But who is she ? " That question 
 reserved itself. 
 
 Pictures of Puritan New England succeeded : Miles 
 Standish and his wife, Rose ; Priscilla Mullins and John 
 Alden ; Governor Bradford and his gracious dame ; 
 then, with historic and representative rapidity, Pres-
 
 210 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 cott at Bunker Hill ; Thomas Jefferson, with scroll and 
 pen ; Washington at Valley Forge ; Washington receiv 
 ing the surrender of Lord Cornwallis ; in all these the 
 same performers and much of the same costuming hav 
 ing to do repeated hut well-managed duty. 
 
 Last of everything, the lovely " Mistress Dolly Payne 
 Todd, and her great, little Madison, at their first 
 interview; " the eminent James in long coat, knee- 
 breeches and huckles, and exquisite laced ruffles such 
 as were cut up afterwards for tokens by rapacious wed 
 ding guests coming in first at one door, and she pre 
 sently from the other end, to receive him with shy state- 
 liness in her "mulberry satin, silk tulle kerchief, and 
 dainty little cap." 
 
 This, enacted con amore, and with really charming 
 grace, by the two Paynes, lineal descendants of the old 
 Virginia family and the Scotch earl, was received with 
 double interest and gr6at applause, and left the com 
 pany in happiest appreciative mood. The whole was 
 praised in voluble recapitulation, almost to excess, for 
 impromptu cleverness and brilliant execution. 
 
 One more picture had been proposed, by the very 
 dame in waiting who had figured with Queen Elizabeth, 
 who caught a glimpse of a lovely dress of comparatively 
 recent date lying in a large box which Estabel uncov 
 ered, to replace therein some plumes and mantles. 
 
 " Oh, let us have that ! " the girl cried eagerly, lay 
 ing a rash hand upon the pale-green silken folds, over 
 which some soft paper wrapping was pinned that but 
 half concealed a garniture of rich laces and a corsage 
 knot of violet flowers. 
 
 Estabel Charlock, with a regardless movement, 
 brushed away the intrusive fingers, as she proceeded 
 with her work. 
 
 Lilian Hawtree drew Miss Thornil gently back. 
 "Hush, please! " she whispered. "I think that is the 
 gown in the beautiful picture downstairs."
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 211 
 
 The young lady moved off, very much with the air of 
 a high superior with whom a subaltern has dared to 
 expostulate. 
 
 Harry Henslee s quick eyes and ears seldom missed any 
 thing. They were alive to all to-day, and he caught the 
 little colloquy and movement. "Thank you for that," 
 he said with warmth, coming quietly beside Lilian as 
 she helped Estabel smooth down the last articles into 
 the chest ; and he closed the lid and turned the key. 
 
 During the descent to luncheon that reserved inquiry 
 came. Who was the pretty Lady of Hensleigh and the 
 Rose of the Mayflower? "Such a charming little per 
 son. Oh, Hawtree? Yes, they called her that, in her 
 other part. Tojrfhorpe? Are you sure? I don t 
 think I know the name." The interest dropped away 
 through the last sentences to an entire indifference, and 
 the speaker adverted with a marked carelessness to 
 something else. 
 
 Harry was coming down just behind, with Estabel, 
 whose head went up to Tudor height again, and re 
 mained so through the luncheon, and until, with thanks 
 and gay good-byes, the carriages had driven away from 
 the hall door. 
 
 Harry caught her for a minute a little apart, as the 
 home party went out presently to the peach orchard, 
 Miss Henslee walking forward with Lilian. 
 
 " Why are you up on such tremendous stilts ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 "You know. You heard." And she mimicked. 
 " Charming little person. People are always per 
 sons when they aren t personages. Topthorpe? Are 
 you sure ? Miss Hawtree ? I don t think I know the 
 name. Hadn t she seen the girl? As if people 
 hadn t any business with names until they had been 
 written in a Topthorpe heaven! Oh, that s your nice 
 little round, mean, slippery world, in its gay little 
 orbit!"
 
 212 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Harry laughed, but his face grew grave again. "I 
 wouldn t be bitter about it," he said. "It s only *a 
 way of speaking. It doesn t mean much." 
 
 Estabel had the last word. "It means all they know 
 how to mean," she answered scornfully. 
 
 In the sweet woods, walking home in the twilight, 
 they forgot it all; at least, for the time. 
 
 Lilian was serenely gay. "What a wonderful day it 
 has been! " she exclaimed. "Have n t we lived through 
 hundreds of years ? And such great, strange lives ? 
 And all locked up as if by enchantment in that old 
 Press Chamber! You were quite right about the au 
 dience, Mr. Henslee. I felt as if they were all there 
 out of history, and Shakespeare, and Walter Scott. 
 It wasn t to-day, at all." 
 
 "You played to your own audience, Miss Hawtree. 
 We re used to it. We ve had all the old toggeries 
 out before, for many a good frolic ; that s the reason 
 we could handle them so fast. But we have never had 
 you in our pictures before. We shall miss you after 
 this." 
 
 "Oh, that is kind of you. But somebody else will 
 come. They always do. I m glad it was I, now, for 
 I don t suppose I shall ever have just such an after 
 this. This must last ; and it will. Everything does 
 last." 
 
 "No. It s a changing, vanishing world, where there 
 is no continuing city. We re always told so, and 
 it s borne in upon me forcibly. This summer will- 
 never come again, and it s almost gone." 
 
 "It isn t August yet." 
 
 "It will be next week; and then oiir summer will be 
 over. We ought to have had the whole of it." 
 
 "We never get the whole of anything," asserted Es 
 tabel. "I shall hate August and Pequant." 
 
 "I ve got all this to carry away, " said Lilian. "It is 
 something lovely that I have lived, and that will always
 
 A PANORAMA OF THE PAST. 213 
 
 be in my life. I think life is the forever of the happy 
 minutes." 
 
 Estabel had marched on, where the path had nar 
 rowed. She was in one of her resentful disgusts. 
 
 "I should like you to have everything all the time," 
 said Harry suddenly, as he leaned over Lilian to hold 
 a protruding branch out of her way. 
 
 "That s just how I am having it. It takes all the 
 time, " she answered blithely. 
 
 "It seems to me to depend less on time than on con 
 dition," Harry replied to that. 
 
 She perceived instantly. It was curious how quickly 
 she took a thought, and how unreadily a personality. 
 
 "Well, condition takes time to arrive. That is a 
 part of it. We re all growing up to our happiness 
 slowly. " 
 
 "And to see some people have things is an educa 
 tion." 
 
 Perhaps the generality of this last speech instinctively 
 modified the significance of his previous words. Or per 
 haps it sincerely explained the process by which the im 
 pulse of the other was being stirred. 
 
 Or they were only seventeen, and not twenty. 
 There could hardly be any weighty significance at all. 
 
 "We had a great piece of Peaceport at luncheon, " 
 Estabel told Aunt Esther shortly, in answer to her in 
 quiries of their day. "Otherwise it was peaceful." 
 
 "Why, Estabel! " exclaimed Lilian in surprise. 
 
 "Oh, you don t know what I mean. You never 
 will. You carry your peace with you." 
 
 "I thought everybody was lovely." 
 
 Then Estabel laughed. "Of course they were. I m 
 cross. There was just one little ill thorn and it 
 pricked. Never mind." 
 
 "They were all here," said Aunt Esther, dropping 
 a small bomb of the unexpected into the conversation.
 
 214 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Here! What for?" 
 
 "To see me and to wait for a horse to be shod 
 and to buy Lilian s bonnet. Young Mrs. Crestonfield 
 took it, and paid ten dollars for it. I told her it was 
 a sample, and that I couldn t get another; and then, 
 of course, she would have it all the more." 
 
 "But you will have another. I want you to let me 
 make up that brown rough-and-ready, with maize-col 
 ored ribbons and brown and golden chrysanthemums," 
 said Lilian gayly. 
 
 "This wasn t their straight way to the High Quar 
 ries," persisted Estabel. 
 
 "No. But the horse s shoe was loose when they 
 drove out of Henslee Place, and there s no blacksmith 
 at the Corners ; so they came round through here to the 
 Ravine Road." 
 
 "Don t make another bonnet, Miss Hawtree. You 
 don t know who may get it, " said Harry Henslee, as 
 he shook hands and bade good-night. 
 
 Estabel, in her turn, gave his hand a big squeeze. 
 "You don t like some things any better than I do, when 
 it comes to the point, after all." 
 
 "There s an eternal fitness in things," Harry an- 
 swei ed. 
 
 " Chooty-choo ! " said Miss Charlock all to herself on 
 her way upstairs.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 PICKED UP IN THE WOODS. 
 
 THE Clymer carriage and pair glittered and pranced 
 through Stillwick, to bring Estabel Charlock over to 
 Pequant. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer did not come for her; she really had 
 a slight headache in the morning, and gave that reason 
 in her little note and message. In more predominant 
 fact, however, she preferred for Estabel the consequence 
 and e clat of an arrival and welcome by her sole self in 
 the face of the afternoon piazza company at the Sachem 
 House. Awaiting her here, she could put the whole 
 matter so much more in evidence than if they just drove 
 up together with no occasion for a stir. Mrs. Clymer 
 always liked to put her elegant movements in evidence. 
 It was a turnout wasted, if she went and came without 
 observation. She could hardly have understood Mrs. 
 John Gilpin, whose chaise 
 
 " was not allowed 
 To drive up to the door, lest all 
 Should say that she was proud." 
 
 Nothing superb that she could command was ever 
 stayed three doors off. 
 
 The arrival and welcome were to be even more marked 
 than she had forecasted. Circumstances played into 
 her hand. Something like the interest and expectancy 
 at the Bell of Edmonton was astir upon the broad col 
 onnade of the Sachem at Pequant when the equipage at 
 last rolled up the drive. 
 
 Estabel left Stillwick in her solitary state, arrayed
 
 216 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 in a perfectly new and stylish carriage costume which 
 had come in a box with injunction to put it on for the 
 ride. She cared little for either matter. She was leav 
 ing Stillwick ; she was going into a new location and 
 surrounding of that same difficult and uncongenial world 
 to which she could not fit ; for which she felt in her 
 own intuition, wiser than the determinate ambition of 
 Aunt Vera, that she was unfitting herself continually by 
 a forced and premature pushing forward to relation with 
 it. "If only Aunt Vera would let me wait till I grow 
 up to something! " she reiterated to herself. But it 
 was of no use to say that again to Aunt Vera. 
 
 Marsden Woods reminded her, with their sweet, re 
 sinous odors and their still repose, too much of the 
 happy coming of a few weeks before and its companion 
 ship ; were too full of all delight that she was relin 
 quishing to be enjoyed according to her wont. Across 
 Shoreham Plains the way was dry and dull and glaring 
 with sun. But there came a beautiful and novel relief 
 in the Long Pines, through which the road led on to 
 Pequant Beach, a stretch of dense, spicy shade, open 
 only here and there in bright glades, where pasture 
 bushes grew, and big blackberries ripened, so far from 
 villages and farm places that they were seldom raided. 
 And in the surprise of quiet and freshness the girl s 
 spirits rose ; and when now. and again a whiff of sea 
 breeze stole across the sleepy downs, and mingled itself 
 with the pine fragrance, she gathered cheer and thought, 
 "There are the woods and the sea, after all; what does 
 anything else matter! " Yet she ended with a sigh, 
 "If only I had Lilian! " 
 
 So certain it is that we want the human, however 
 and all the more therefore the material may environ 
 us with charm and harmony. Estabel hummed to her 
 self in an undertone, covered by the soft crush of wheels 
 upon the sand and needles, and the thud of hoofs, a 
 modified fragment of old "Greenland."
 
 PICKED UP IN THE WOODS. 217 
 
 " What though the spicy breezes 
 Blow soft o er shore and isle, 
 Though every prospect pleases, 
 And only folks are vile ! " 
 
 "I wonder how it will be! I oughtn t to say quite 
 that, I suppose; but it s in the hymn, and vile is 
 vulgar, and it s vulgar to call everybody else so, I 
 am sure. Lilian would find somebody but I m not 
 Lilian. That s why I want her. She s a born mis 
 sionary. Her soul s lighted, and she has enough to- 
 light up everybody s else with. She s no stingy wise 
 virgin. I m always under an extinguisher, or shut up 
 in a dark lantern. Heigh-ho ! " 
 
 A turn in the road brought them suddenly out into 
 one of the brief spaces of turf and herbage. It wound 
 and widened from the woodway to the left, offering 
 enticement of wild blossom and fruit ; there was the 
 scent of pennyroyal and everlasting in the air and among 
 shrubbery of low cedar and juniper; the blackberry 
 vines were rampant and rich with their heavy clusters. 
 Estabel longed to stop the carriage and get out and 
 gather; but the time was limited. Her aunt expected 
 her before the tea hour, and she was particular about 
 her horses, to say nothing of the risk of high profes 
 sional objections ; so they rolled on into the closing 
 shade again. 
 
 Just in the edge of forest line they came upon a sin 
 gular group. Two young girls, one of whom sat for 
 lornly upon a stump, while the other, alert and anxious, 
 stood erect, watching the road either way as for any 
 sign of coming, appeared to view by the wayside, and 
 sprang up and forward at the approach of the carriage. 
 Not country girls, very evidently, but daintily appar 
 eled, and quite obviously strange to their surroundings. 
 A basket of berries and a loose heap of flowers and 
 vine trails had been carelessly set down, and dropped, 
 upon the ground at their feet. Beyond them, almost
 
 218 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 hidden in a clump of trees, showed two slender wheels 
 of some vehicle in an unaccountable position, as if it 
 had been turned forcibly into the impenetrable thicket. 
 A nearer look, as the coachman drew up his horses, dis 
 covered a light chaise, with a placid pony headed right 
 in among the scrub, but standing patiently in the thills, 
 which were very much compressed toward each other, 
 and held him fast on either side between two sturdy 
 birch boles. 
 
 "He got in there while we were just round here in 
 the pasture, " explained the young girl who first came 
 forward, while the other, for some unintelligible reason, 
 had turned away and gone back to her stump. Mani 
 festly, she was not the responsible person, nor quite 
 comfortable in the disclosure of their predicament. 
 
 "He always stands or follows on when we get out. 
 We re so proud of his wise ways, and he s so proud to 
 be trusted. How he came to do this I cannot tell; but 
 there s no possibility of our getting him out, and this 
 is such a lonely road. We ve waited here nearly an 
 hour, and nobody has come along." 
 
 "Which way were you going? " asked Estabel. 
 
 "Back to Pequant. We re staying at the Sachem. 
 I m Mary Brithwaite, and this is my mother s chaise 
 and pony." 
 
 "I can take you both with me. I am going there 
 myself. But Josiah couldn t leave his horses, I m 
 afraid, to get yours out of his trouble. We can stop 
 at the first house and send back help, if that will do." 
 
 Estabel spoke as coolly and politely and of course as 
 if a keen look at the quarter-face of the girl who had 
 sulked away had not revealed to her that which Miss 
 Brithwaite now made an ineludible certainty. 
 
 "Oh, thank you! Corinna! It is my cousin, Miss 
 Chilstone. Miss ? " 
 
 "Estabel Charlock," was the grave reply, and the 
 two, without either sign or demur, were introduced.
 
 PICKED UP IN THE WOODS. 219 
 
 Mary Brithwaite was too entirely absorbed with her 
 gratitude and her care for her pony to notice. 
 
 "AVe shall be so very much obliged/ she went on. 
 "Socrates will stand still, if I tell him to. We were 
 afraid to leave him at first, or we should have walked 
 on to find somebody. Now, he 11 understand." 
 
 She went down into the underbrush to the pony s 
 head. "Be a philosopher, Socrates. You re all right. 
 You needn t be ashamed, and we won t desert you. 
 We re only going for some one to take care of you. 
 You hear? You 11 keep quiet? " 
 
 Socrates almost seemed to smile as he turned his head 
 lovingly over his mistress s shoulder. "How can I do 
 anything else ? " he seemed to ask. 
 
 "He s hard and fast, if he don t kick," Josiah as 
 sured the young lady with official gravity. 
 
 "He doesn t know how to kick," Mary Brithwaite 
 answered with dignity. 
 
 Corinna Chilstone took her place in silence opposite 
 her cousin, as she might have done in a public vehicle. 
 Estabel, by a well-timed movement, had made room for 
 the latter beside herself. She did not think it necessary 
 to offer a change of seats with Miss Chilstone. 
 
 " How lucky and how thankful we are ! " said the 
 cordial Mary again. "How could we tell who might 
 come by? I was half afraid of anybody that it might 
 be. Are n t you glad, Corinna?" 
 
 "We should have been glad of a haycart, " returned 
 that young woman, catching the opportunity for an os 
 tensible civility that could compensate itself by a covert 
 sneer. And that was all she vouchsafed, of utterance 
 that could possibly include or refer to Estabel, the en 
 tire way. Mary Brithwaite would have been surprised, 
 if the girl were not habitually moody. As it was, she 
 covered her moroseness with all the kindly chatter she 
 could think of. 
 
 A farmer was found who agreed to "hitch up " and
 
 220 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 go back to the rescue of Socrates, and bring the "team " 
 to the Sachem House. 
 
 "Guess ther won t be no defferkelty, " he said; "on- 
 less an indeed the shaffs is broke. Ef they is, I 11 
 tie em up, somehow er nother, so s t to tow it along. 
 You girls needn t be the least grain concerned. I ll 
 git the boss home all right anyhow; an nobody 11 med 
 dle with the shay till we can see to it." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer sat expectant in the fringe of a piazza 
 group, in elegant afternoon array, with her tatting be 
 tween her brilliantly ringed fingers, and a book open 
 upon her knee. 
 
 The group was anxious ; there had been uneasy ques 
 tioning and calculating about the other party, Mrs. 
 Brithwaite and Mrs. Chilstone worrying about their 
 daughters, who had been gone nearly four hours. Mrs. 
 Brithwaite feared something like what had actually hap 
 pened, from the limits of the pony s well-known sagacity 
 and the possible imprudence of the young girls. She 
 had said little, but she had watched and listened for 
 every wheel, in the dread that Socrates, left too much 
 to his own devices, might come trotting home, leaving 
 his errant mistresses to theirs and who could tell 
 where ? 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had remarked that her niece was later 
 than she had supposed she would be ; but in the real 
 suspense her observation had dropped unheeded. She 
 feared, with reason, that Estabel s advent might in like 
 manner be overborne ; all the more excited and impor 
 tant was she when her barouche wheeled round the 
 curve, bearing its three occupants, and Mrs. Brithwaite, 
 catching sight of Mary s eagerly outstretched head, and 
 the wave of her handkerchief, started from her seat, 
 and flew down the long steps to the drive, followed by 
 her whole party of friends. 
 
 Everybody seemed to get down before Aunt Vera, 
 although she certainly now had a common, if not a para-
 
 PICKED UP IN THE WOODS. 221 
 
 mount right and interest with everybody. But for once 
 Estabel was in the midst. 
 
 "You dear girl! " Mrs. Brithwaite said to her, still 
 standing with her arm around her daughter s waist, as 
 she had thrown it at her alighting, and reaching out 
 her other hand to Estabel with warm seizure and thanks. 
 "I have been so terrified! You have been so good! 
 Come up and tell me all about it, both of you." And 
 she still held them so, although Mrs. Clymer made her 
 way to them and claimed her niece with wondering and 
 delighted welcome. 
 
 "Oh, don t mind! " said Estabel with embarrassment. 
 "It is nothing. I just happened to come along. Miss 
 Brithwaite will tell you." 
 
 She would have extricated herself with her aunt and 
 gone apart; but her aunt would not be extricated. The 
 little story was told and received with renewed gladness 
 and thanks, both to Estabel and Mrs. Clymer, so that 
 the soul of the latter swelled with satisfaction, and the 
 girl s correspondingly rebelled. 
 
 " Come, auntie ; we must go upstairs, please, " she 
 said ; and then when she had got her to the doorway, 
 "Don t push!" she added, with low emphasis between 
 closed teeth. 
 
 She did not mean impertinence ; she never did ; but 
 character was asserting itself; the higher dominated; 
 sixteen was admonishing forty. 
 
 Corinna Chilstone had slipped off at the first. "Such 
 a fuss ! " she whispered scornfully, on her part, to her 
 mother. And Mrs. Chilstone, who played cribbage, 
 responded vulgarly, "They have pegged one, I suppose 
 they think. But that doesn t win the game." 
 
 After that, for several days, Estabel sedulously 
 avoided not only the Chilstones, but the Brithwaites. 
 
 "You foolish girl!" her aunt remonstrated. "You 
 might have taken your place here at once, and you 
 won t. You throw away your advantage."
 
 222 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I don t want advantage. I don t see any." 
 
 "Why don t you give Corinna Chilstone a chance to 
 speak to you? She owes it to you." 
 
 "I don t want her to owe me anything." 
 
 "What is the use of putting people under obligation, 
 then?" 
 
 "Not the least use in the world. It is very disagree 
 able. " 
 
 "Oh, you re an odd stick! " Mrs. Clymer ejaculated 
 in despair. 
 
 Then Estabel relented, as usual. "I don t mean to 
 be. And I really won t, whenever I can help it." 
 
 "Mrs. Brithwaite is as polite as possible." 
 
 "Mrs. Brithwaite is nice. I m perfectly willing to 
 be polite to her, but I won t run after her." 
 
 "You set people against you, and then you say they 
 are n t nice." 
 
 "I think very likely I do, Aunt Vera. I seem to 
 be made so." 
 
 "You re not so much made yet, that you can t be 
 altered. It is your duty to be more approachable." 
 
 "I m right here," answered Estabel, laughing.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 THE ROARING GORGE. 
 
 ONE morning, after two days of strong east wind 
 and mist, the sun flung away the fog, the weather vanes 
 pointed to the westward, and the great rocks reared 
 their gray breasts, softly illumined, against the crests 
 of the incoming tide. 
 
 Roaring Gorge would be magnificent. 
 
 Everybody would be there. 
 
 Rocks are free to everybody. 
 
 Estabel went down with her aunt to see the sea. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer went down to see the sea and the 
 see-ers. One needs to spell the word with an extra 
 "e " for fear of misconstruction. Doubtless there were 
 but few in the company for whom it could be written 
 as in the dictionary. 
 
 All over the jagged little promontory which ran out 
 to challenge and oppose the waves, and had stood there 
 till its very heart had been eaten out into a hollow, in 
 and from which the surges poured with their angry 
 thunder at the two high tides each day, were scattered 
 groups of gay, curious watchers ; the many colors of 
 women s array showing like beds of bloom in a strange 
 rock garden of the ocean-side ; the men in their white 
 ducks and coats of gray or black, standing or moving 
 about among them, like seabirds lighted, marveling, 
 upon the one rare spot so pranked in all the wild cliff 
 range that up and down the gale-swept coast made 
 boundary and haunt for only strong-winged creatures 
 of the storm.
 
 224 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer came down the rough side path that led 
 to the narrow strip of pebbly beach below the steep, un 
 covered only at low water, and made her way to a flat 
 projection just beneath the rocks of the casual "dress 
 circle, " most brilliantly crowded and gay with voices 
 lifted in high keys to ring across the surf-boom, even in 
 the comparative lull of its rhythmic retreat. 
 
 She made apparently her choice of place. She always 
 did ; but it was always in the fringe. She exchanged 
 a nodding salute with those above her whom she knew ; 
 more was not possible. She escaped any palpable neg 
 lect. If Mrs. Clymer "pushed," it was not until she 
 had got some bit of purchase. 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite, sitting far up, with a few quiet 
 people, beckoned her daughter from the gay young group 
 next lower. "There are Miss Charlock and her aunt," 
 she said, "on the Little Flat. Go down and ask them 
 up here. We can make room. They have n t a nice 
 place at all. It will be wet there presently." 
 
 Mary Brithwaite tripped off lightly, springing sure 
 footed from point to point toward the pathway, and 
 came down with her mother s message to the two. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer rose alertly, with her thanks. Estabel 
 followed her aunt s movement more restrainedly. In 
 a moment more they were in a lovely, commanding posi 
 tion with the others above, whence they could look di 
 rectly down into the deep cleft, and see the towering 
 green avalanches come rearing on and fling themselves 
 into the mouth of the narrow inlet, to rush far under 
 neath and out of sight, roll reverberating through their 
 hidden, mysterious, self-hewn chambers, and be hurled 
 back by their own recoil at the present limit of their 
 age-long work, to shatter in concussion with the next 
 assaulting force, in a cloud of foam, that threw itself 
 high up in air, and fell at last in gentle dispersion 
 of small drops that often sprinkled their light spray 
 over the heads of the laughing lookers-on.
 
 THE ROARING GORGE. 225 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite greeted Estabel and her aunt cor 
 dially. "The Gorge is grand to-day," she said. "And 
 how beautifully the storm has cleared away." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer s sky was indeed clear; her day was 
 radiant. But her reply was swept into silence by a 
 fresh incoming thunder and tremendous outrush of the 
 great spout. 
 
 "You were just in time," said Mary Brithwaite. A 
 crawling spume was slipping backward into the sea from 
 the surface of the Little Flat. 
 
 "It was so very kind of you," returned Mrs. Clymer. 
 "We were certainly quite careless." 
 
 "Or humble," Estabel suggested; "till your Friend, 
 come up higher beatified us." 
 
 The momentary pause was already being broken by 
 the gathering rumble of another wave. Perhaps it was 
 this, or it may partly have been the detected little self- 
 satire in Estabel s speech, which suggested Mrs. Brith 
 waite s word before the crash came. 
 
 "It is useless to try to talk," she declared. "Those 
 young people can scream, like the gulls. I think older 
 human beings are willing to be hushed." 
 
 So hushed they were, gazing and listening if re 
 ceiving upon one s sense a crush of sound can be called 
 listening while the ceaseless grand impulsion of the 
 sea and the roar of its diapason in the great open organ 
 tubes of its channeled caverns, went on and on. 
 
 But after a while the immature human nature grew 
 sated. 
 
 " There will be no end to this performance, " declared 
 a restless youth, impatient of vicarious activities. 
 "There is no curtain to go down. We may as well be 
 off and get up something for ourselves." 
 
 "It is almost bathing time," reminded one of the 
 girls. 
 
 So there was a move. The little company broke up 
 variously, climbing over the rocky way toward the
 
 226 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 grassy bank, which having gained, they paused, regath- 
 ering in knots for plan or parley. 
 
 Corinna Chilstone, under her aunt s care this morn 
 ing, came round to her, bringing an eager party of 
 young friends, and an appeal for concurrence in a fresh 
 suggestion. 
 
 "We want to walk along the beach to Glynn Point," 
 she told the lady. "Won t Molly come? " 
 
 " Mary is occupied at present with Miss Charlock, " 
 Mrs. Brithwaite answered pointedly. 
 
 "Oh, there s mamma!" exclaimed Corinna, seizing 
 a diversion, and hastening with her proposition to the 
 superseding authority. 
 
 Mrs. Chilstone had walked over from the hotel to 
 meet the returning party, and had almost joined them. 
 
 "Corinna!" 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite s voice summoned back her niece 
 with decision. 
 
 "Your aunt is speaking to you," Mrs. Chilstone 
 admonished her; and between the two Corinna had to 
 yield. The Governor s widow could be decisive. To say 
 nothing of position, the late Governor s estate was in 
 her sole control and at her sole disposal ; the Chilstone 
 family was in consequence very much controlled and 
 disposed by her also. So Corinna turned around again. 
 
 "I wish to introduce you to Miss Charlock." Mrs. 
 Brithwaite spoke with unmistakable emphasis. "Miss 
 Charlock, my niece, Miss Corinna Chilstone." 
 
 But the perverse young woman would not be abashed. 
 Her little clan was all about her ; she was observed ; 
 she thought herself supported ; she would not be com 
 pelled from the course she had adopted. 
 
 She looked into her aunt s face with a slowly amused 
 smile, as if gradually taking in a not very pointed little 
 joke. "Oh, yes," she said lazily; "it has happened 
 to me before." And giving Estabel a mere compulsory 
 short nod, she was turning off again.
 
 THE ROARING GORGE. 227 
 
 But Estabel stopped her squarely. This snub had 
 been a double one. She disposed of it for two. With 
 a slight step forward, and her head held high, she 
 looked down upon Corinna s lesser height right royally, 
 and with the sweetest air of playful condescension, said, 
 so clearly that every one could hear, 
 
 "Don t mind, Miss Chilstone. /respect Mrs. Brith- 
 waite s kind intention. But an introduction only means, 
 You may if you please, you know; and if we don t 
 please, it won t matter how many times we are intro 
 duced. Nothing can make us acquainted, unless we 
 choose; not even if we were lost in the woods together 
 for a week." 
 
 Deliberately, without the least flurry or excitement, 
 she said it ; and then, with a little movement that 
 might hint a courtesy or a finality, she dropped back to 
 Mrs. Brithwaite s side, frankly holding out her hand 
 to her. 
 
 "Good-morning," she said. "I thank you and Miss 
 Brithwaite for a very pleasant time. You are ready, 
 Aunt Vera ? " And Aunt Vera had no choice. 
 
 They walked away, leaving a little pause of well-bred 
 surprise behind them. 
 
 "Now you have done it!" Mrs. Clymer exploded 
 upon Estabel as soon as they were out of hearing. 
 
 "I have learned how," the girl answered calmly. 
 
 With the others, after the arrested instant, came 
 comments. 
 
 " What an extraordinary girl ! " said one stereotyped 
 young lady. 
 
 "Gave it to her there, didn t she? Straight be 
 tween the eyes ! " 
 
 "Jove, she s plucky! She 11 do, yet." 
 
 A jury of two gilded youths on the outskirt of 
 the little throng mutually declared these findings of the 
 case. 
 
 Meanwhile Corinna Chilstone was carrying it off, as
 
 228 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 she thought, superiorly. "You never can tell what 
 that sort of person will do next," she said. "That is 
 why I keep clear of them." 
 
 "It is only that sort of person who can do the next 
 thing so appositely," Mrs. Brithwaite answered. "But 
 you are quite wise on your own part Corinna." 
 
 Then Corinna knew that her aunt was thoroughly 
 displeased with her, and had definitively "taken up " 
 Estabel Charlock. 
 
 "It is of no use to fight against Aunt Brithwaite s 
 fads, " she remarked nonchalantly to a companion, as 
 they strolled away after the general lead toward the 
 beach. "The only way is to let them drop." 
 
 Mrs. Chilstone tried to smooth things with her sister. 
 
 "Girls won t always take to each other, you know," 
 she said. "This Miss Charlock may he very well in 
 her way; hut Corinna somehow hasn t cared to notice 
 her, and she seems up on her dignity accordingly." 
 
 "It is dignity," said Mrs. Brithwaite. "There is 
 a difference between that and insolence." 
 
 " Oh, she has the making of it in her, " admitted the 
 woman of the world, appreciative after her sort, but 
 obtuse to the distinction. "She might be in society 
 fast enough, if it weren t for that impossible aunt." 
 
 By all which little interludes it may appear that 
 Estabel had not absolutely "done it" yet in the 
 sense which Mrs. Clymer apprehended. 
 
 She had only taken the enemy s battery, and turned 
 its guns in effective self-defense. 
 
 That is not a desirable necessity in any human affairs, 
 and it may be all very petty in this especial illustration ; 
 but the same human conditions and compulsions are in 
 great and small ; and we have not, alas ! arrived at the 
 millennium as yet.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 HIGHLAND NORA. 
 
 IP it had stopped there, Estabel had really done 
 pretty well for herself; counting it pretty well to have 
 made an impression where she would certainly not have 
 made a voluntary effort to impress at all. 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite was stanch to her. Mary declared 
 that she was "simply splendid." "Splendidly simple" 
 would have put it more exactly; perhaps that was what 
 Mary Brithwaite meant. 
 
 The gilded youths who had given verdict for her in 
 vited her to dance. 
 
 A large party came over from Peaceport for a week; 
 tableaux and charades became the order of the evenings ; 
 the Peaceport girls remembered Estabel s clever man 
 agement and beautiful acting at Henslee Place, and she 
 was brought into request. 
 
 It was so simply her delight that she never thought 
 of compliment, but took her part just as she had played 
 Ellen Douglas in Aunt Esther s orchard -to her real 
 comradery in song and story, rather than to any polite, 
 admiring society audience. 
 
 She was "Highland Nora," in Scott s charming bal 
 lad, and was most thoroughly and essentially her own 
 proud little self in it ; with Harry Henslee, who had 
 come down for a few days with them, as "the Earlie s 
 son ; " and no less a person than Dr. North himself, 
 also persuaded into a twenty-four hours visit, as "Old 
 Callum." To Estabel s astonishment he acquiesced 
 without so much as a "pooh-pooh! " to her request. He
 
 230 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 seemed somehow really glad to see her and oblige her; 
 and gave himself up, apparently, for the brief, unusual 
 space, to such amusement as was offered. Once in a 
 great while something in his nature broke, as it were, 
 through a sternly maintained abstinence and restraint, 
 and betrayed a different possibility the man who, 
 ordinarily, Ulick North would not be. 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite read the recitative verses beautifully 
 as the acted picture went on, leaving the quoted lines 
 to the personages themselves, the alternations playing 
 in to each other with absolute smoothness and great 
 effect. 
 
 " Hark, what Highland Nora said." 
 
 she began, the words falling musically upon the silence 
 as the curtain slowly rose and disclosed Nora, in plaid 
 and kirtle, with snooded hair, and an eagle plume in 
 her little Highland cap. And Nora took it up with 
 quick and naive empressement : 
 
 " The Earlie s son I wadna wed, 
 Should a the race o Nature dee, 
 An nane be left but him an me. 
 For a the gowd an a the gear, 
 An a the laii s, baith far an near, 
 That ever valor lost and won, 
 I wadna wed the Earlie s son." 
 
 And " Old Callum, " who had stolen with ancient, 
 tottering steps upon the stage behind her, began in 
 tremulous falsetto 
 
 " A maiden s vows " 
 
 " Old Callum spoke," 
 
 interpolated Mrs. Brithwaite s clear, sweet chorus 
 and Old Callum went on : 
 
 " Are lichtly made, an lichtly broke. 
 The heather on the mountain height 
 Begins to bloom in purple light ;
 
 HIGHLAND NORA. 231 
 
 The frost win sune shall sweep away 
 That lustre deep f ra glen an brae ; 
 But Nora, ere its bloom be gone, 
 May blithely wed the Earlie s son." 
 
 With a proud light in eye, and spring in step, and 
 vibrance in voice, Nora came farther forward : 
 
 " The wildin swan the lake s clear breast 
 May barter for the eagle s nest ; 
 The Awe s fierce stream may backward turn ; 
 Ben Cruachan fa , an crush Kilchurn ; 
 Our kilted clan, when blood is high, 
 Before their foes may turn an fly : 
 But I, were a these marvels done, 
 Wad never wed the Earlie s son." 
 
 Anything more natively superb than her air and tread 
 across the stage, as these last lines fell ringing from her 
 scornful lips that curled away from the flashing edges 
 of small white teeth, could hardly be imagined ; and 
 then Old Callum stole apart, but lingered in the side 
 distance, keenly watching, while the last stanza was 
 recited with a telling quietness, and just before it ended 
 appeared the consummating illustration the Highland 
 Maid and her lordly lover ; the cairngorm jewels gleam 
 ing in his bonnet, waved exultingly in one hand, while 
 the other held sweet Nora round the waist, her pride 
 all given away, her eyes gently shining, her lips shy 
 and tender, and her head bent softly toward his shoul 
 der: 
 
 " Still in the water lily s shade 
 Her wonted rest the wild swan made ; 
 Ben Cruachan stands as firm as ever ; 
 Still onward flows the Awe s fierce river ; 
 To shun the clash of foeman s steel 
 No Highland brogue has turned the heel; 
 But Nora s heart is lost and won : 
 She s wedded to the Earlie s son."
 
 232 SQUARE PEGS 
 
 She came off the scene, when the curtain had fallen, 
 laughing. The Earlie s son looked at her with a cer 
 tain newly touched delight. But she was back again 
 instantly, in herself; she was Estabel Charlock and he 
 only Harry Henslee ; it had not mattered who he was, 
 except that she could act intimately with him in the 
 cousinly intimacy of her whole life. In the song, she 
 had been Highland Nora, whom strong love, in the ab 
 stract, such as Estabel might only know abstractly, had 
 vanquished into happiness. 
 
 Old Callum stood, oblivious, where he had been left. 
 
 "Wad she wed the Earlie s son? " was dimly shaping 
 itself to query in his mind. 
 
 But what had he to do with it, if she would ? He 
 supposed money and family were apt to carry the day, 
 by some latent force, however scorned and unacknow 
 ledged. 
 
 Estabel Charlock was a woman; she would doubtless 
 do as women do. 
 
 He shook himself alertly to his natural height and 
 poise. Old Callum was no more. Dr. North betook 
 himself to his own room, and changed his dress. 
 
 Out in the audiejice, if there were any who remem 
 bered the "Lady of Hensleigh " and their curiosity 
 concerning her, they forgot it now; a new unspoken 
 suggestion replaced it; one of those "what ifs? " sprang 
 up, that are always springing, and as continually dying 
 out. 
 
 "Are they cousins, you say? Why, yes; his grand 
 mother was a Charlock that wonderful Eleanor, you 
 know. I never thought of it before. Really, it 
 wouldn t be very strange. How grandly she did it! " 
 
 Estabel was very near the top of the local, temporary 
 little social wave.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE. 
 
 DR. NORTH went back to his office and his patients 
 the next morning. A day and a night were the most 
 he would ever, and very rarely, spare at once, although 
 his ordinary work could be safely left with his college 
 chum and medical exchange. There was a curious feel 
 ing in him, somehow, which he would not examine to 
 diagnose, that lie rather wished he had not spared them 
 now. " It only discontents a fellow, " he said, as he 
 smoked his solitary pipe at bedtime. 
 
 Dr. North knew very well that his life must probably 
 run on present lines for years to come. Society 
 "nonsense" were not for him. They could lead to 
 nothing. They only unfitted. He looked facts in the 
 face so much more coolly and reasonably now than he 
 had done in that short, rudely shattered dream of four 
 years ago. Then, love and hope could have done every 
 thing. Love and hope were gone. Unrelenting, prac 
 tical realities alone remained. 
 
 "What a fool I was! " he exclaimed inwardly. He 
 did not mean four years ago ; he meant last night. He 
 thought he meant only his absurd ballad acting. 
 
 Before breakfast he had found Estabel alone on the 
 piazza that overlooked the sea. She loved it at that 
 time, before it became the mise en scene of the flutter- 
 life of the great hotel. 
 
 She stood by the rail as Dr. North came out. He 
 stopped on the threshold, and would have turned, but 
 that she turned more quickly. 
 
 "Good-morning! " she said gayly. "The morning
 
 234 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 says that itself. You can t be going to spoil the sea 
 breeze with tobacco smoke ? " For the doctor had cigar 
 and match in hand. 
 
 "I thought you did not mind? " 
 
 "Not indoors, where I m used to it, and where it s 
 stuffy at any rate. But where we can get this! I 
 meant you would spoil it for yourself." 
 
 "As people do a good many things." But he 
 scratched his match and flung it away, and held his 
 cigar unlighted. He might as well speak to the child ; 
 he would be off when breakfast should be over. 
 
 "You had a fine time last night," he said common- 
 placely. "Different from this. But I suppose you 
 liked it as you do the cigar indoors. Rather a 
 singular idiosyncrasy, that, too. The contrary is more 
 common." 
 
 "Isn t the contrary very common with you, Dr. 
 North ? " she retorted to the bit of cynicism she de 
 tected in his remark. 
 
 Dr. North laughed. Estabel s directness, and the 
 touchiness so easily provoked to it, always amused him. 
 
 "I thought it seemed to be flowers and rainbows. 
 Aren t you rather in the midst just now? " 
 
 "There isn t any midst. It doesn t hold anything. 
 I think scarcely anything does. What does it amount 
 to ? I shall never see these people again most of 
 them. I don t know anything of their lives, nor they 
 of mine." 
 
 "All those any things in the sense of nothings. 
 Yet you liked it. And possibly it amounts to an indi 
 cation that you may have more of the same sort, when 
 you want it and will take the trouble for it. I sup 
 pose you know that you are clever and that you are 
 growing pretty, after all." 
 
 Whether he said that for keen test of her, or aggra 
 vation to himself, or simply because he could not help 
 saying it, would not be easy to determine. He did not
 
 ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE. 235 
 
 always understand himself when he was with Estabel, 
 shrewdly as he may have thought, or sought, to under 
 stand her. 
 
 " Do you truly think that, Dr. North ? " There was 
 unmistakable delight in her quick response. 
 
 "Perhaps I would better not have said it." 
 
 "Oh, I am glad you did. It was kind of you. It 
 has done me good." 
 
 Her bright, pleased look met his without embarrass 
 ment. Would he rather she had been embarrassed? 
 Would he have thought better of her or would he 
 have been better content with the personal power of his 
 own brusque compliment ? 
 
 Fresh and sweet with the joy of the morning of 
 the day and of her own young life the beauty of the 
 morning was certainly upon her. She was rounding 
 into fair contours. The brow was widened with her 
 dawning thought ; all her color was deeper, stronger 
 with life. Her pale-tinted hair was turning tawny; 
 she was going to be one of Holmes s "leonine blondes." 
 She had the "lion s eye," as an artist has called it; 
 the feature in which dwells the lion s nobleness; the 
 deeply dinted lids, the firm, brave setting; the hue of 
 chrysoberyl, lighted with golden fire. 
 
 Standing there, in her simple gingham morning gown 
 buttoned from throat to belt, with narrow linen collar 
 and cuffs of faultless white, she flashed this look of a 
 beautiful moment upon Ulick North. 
 
 He tried to see nothing in it but her gladness at being 
 told that she was pretty. 
 
 Footsteps and voices sounded in the hall behind them ; 
 people were coming out ; Dr. North walked away. 
 
 "A woman s heart is only just behind her face," was 
 the silent irony with which he was defending himself 
 from what ? 
 
 To-night, with his lonely pipe and these intruding 
 reminiscences, he grew restlessly irritated.
 
 236 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 He took down a big volume from his professional 
 shelves ; perhaps to verify, if possible, the extraordinary 
 anatomical assertion he had made to himself some dozen 
 hours before. 
 
 But it was not physiology that puzzled or could help 
 him; his question was of no bodily organism whose 
 place and use might be defined and action predicated ; 
 it was of that curious thing to him, a woman s soul; 
 what it was made of, where it was seated, what it 
 would be likely to do with the woman and with what 
 ever other human life hers touched. 
 
 "It is right behind her face and stops there," he 
 was repeating determinedly to himself, and thinking of 
 a woman who had once most nearly interested him, and 
 of a girl who was beginning in other fashion quite 
 philosophically, he thought to interest him now. 
 
 " It is * how I look, and how people think I look ; 
 it is Can I be the belle of the ball ? and Rose col 
 ored curtains for the doctors. It begins with Flora 
 MacFlimsey and it ends with Mrs. Skewton always." 
 
 That "always" was a word of habit with him; his 
 deductions were general and decisive ; it was his great 
 est mistake. In asserting his rule, he disregarded the 
 exceptions. 
 
 He did not yet understand Estabel Charlock at all. 
 
 Meanwhile, Estabel was thinking over what he had 
 said to her, and the way in which he had left her with 
 out another word. It came back to her his words 
 and ways were very apt to come back to her in a kind 
 of judgment with a keen, mixed remembrance. 
 
 There was the pleasure that Ulick North, who had 
 told her once so scornfully that she might stand looking 
 in the glass forever, but she would never be a beauty 
 had owned, to her face, quite needlessly, and as if he 
 could not help it, that she was growing pretty. He 
 had not put that other assertion precisely as she chose 
 to put it now; that was the shape to which her mind
 
 ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE. 237 
 
 had moulded it ; she drew her own corollaries, as he 
 drew his, and the little hurt and discouragement of this 
 had fixed itself within her as one of the hard small 
 facts accepted from her experience. 
 
 On the other hand, there had been his look, as he 
 regretted and half took back what he had said; dis 
 claimed, at any rate, the possible inference that he was 
 personally pleased with her. There had been a touch 
 of the old scorn, a contempt that she was pleased with 
 herself; she had seen it upon lip and eyelid as he had 
 turned away. Her own inward utterance was the com 
 plement to his, "He thinks I am only skin deep." 
 
 She knew so well that it was not mere trivial vanity 
 that moved her ; it was the justified longing for her 
 part and share of the everlasting grace and harmony 
 which are the outcome of the beautiful, everlasting 
 truth. It would be the same with her behind a kitchen- 
 garden fence or in a grand assembly. She wanted to 
 be. On a desert island she would have been happy as 
 Miranda; a creature made in loveliness, and waiting 
 for its lovely mission. No expression but of the best, 
 in actual and possible, would have been tolerable or 
 in genuine relation to her. Caliban and Sycorax were 
 not of her humanity. 
 
 Why could not Ulick North recognize in her this 
 latent verity ? If she cared for praise, for finding that 
 she could please, it was that this confirmed her in her 
 hope, that beauty and pleasing, and all that these two 
 signified, in a life not yet fathomed by her or even 
 guessed, were not apart from her and unattainable, but 
 that she should yet become, and illustrate her own one 
 form and quality of a divine and multifold meaning. 
 
 How much of this may be true of many a girl who 
 prinks before her glass and whose face lights up at a 
 compliment? Judge not. 
 
 With the love and desire for beauty, born and grow 
 ing in her, there was also born and growing what by no
 
 238 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 means is invariably twin to beauty sense ; that is the 
 sense artistic, which achieves beauty. It was greatly 
 this to which her external development was owing. 
 Since she had outgrown her childish carelessness and 
 had learned to take thought, her intuitions of the fitting 
 and becoming asserted themselves quite unexpectedly to 
 those who had known her long before, and almost as 
 much so to herself. She was often surprised at her 
 own perceptions and discoveries in matters of toilet and 
 apparel. She divined somehow what "would do; " she 
 felt with discomfort what would not. It came about 
 that nothing was ever incongruous with her, though in 
 many things she was and in consequence peculiar. 
 
 She was one of those persons who have a style of 
 their own; of whom observers say so, with the addi 
 tion, "It would not do for anybody else." 
 
 Her aunt said it to her by way of criticism and de 
 precation. "I do not wish it to," was the reply. 
 
 "But you would look better if you would wear things 
 as others do. The fashion is always becoming." 
 
 "I don t think so, Aunt Vera. It is only up-to- 
 date. People think it pretty to be that." 
 
 "What everybody thinks, is." 
 
 "Oh, Aunt Vera! Isn t the world ever mistaken? 
 What are art and science and preaching for, then ? " 
 
 " Very well, " answered Aunt Vera, with the em 
 phatic intonation by which she was accustomed to make 
 those two words end a losing argument. "I only say 
 you would look better if you would drop your hair across 
 your ears, as the other girls all do." 
 
 "Somebody must have set that fashion who had ugly 
 ears," Estabel rejoined. "I haven t." 
 
 Truly, the exquisitely curved and exactly placed little 
 aural appendages, above which the soft, thick hair was 
 swept back into braids that were coiled and lost in the 
 knot behind, well lifted from the graceful, slender nape, 
 were never so made and put on to be hidden.
 
 ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE. 239 
 
 "And you comb it too high at the back," continued 
 Mrs. Clymer, whose whole soul enlisted itself in a point 
 of discussion like this. "They don t do it so." 
 
 "Why should it always be they, and not I? I 
 don t do it for they. It suits me. It would contra 
 dict my nose if I made the bunch down low. I should 
 be all mixed. The line of expression would be broken 
 up." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had not the faintest conception of the 
 line of expression, but as she looked more observantly 
 at Estabel s profile and the general effect, and saw 
 something spirited and unique in the carriage of head 
 and set of features, something uplifted not "up- 
 tilted " in the free-drawn line of the nose, and a 
 light, strong bearing in the curve and poise of the slim, 
 round neck, she had to confess to herself that it all 
 went well together, and that a final touch had adapted 
 itself to all, however unconventionally, in the gathering 
 up of the softly glistening locks and the putting in of 
 hairpins. 
 
 It was the same with Estabel as to the tie of a rib 
 bon, the placing of a trimming ; everything took char 
 acter, seemed shaped to and grown from, herself; it 
 was not put on. Whatever came from the hands of 
 milliner or dressmaker suffered a change in her own; 
 it took some turn that made it hers. Her throat laces, 
 for example, were gathered up, instead of falling down, 
 as then commonly arranged ; a necklet that she was 
 fond of wearing, of lava stones in little oval rims, con 
 fined them so. Sometimes it was a velvet ribbon with 
 a golden filagree clasp. "I look better this way," she 
 would tell her aunt ; and then say something again 
 about that "line of expression." 
 
 "I don t know what you mean; I don t believe you 
 do yourself, " Mrs. Clymer would reply impatiently. 
 
 "Oh, yes, I do. I learned it from Lilian. I have 
 learned a great deal from her."
 
 240 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Pshaw! I suppose the carpenter teaches her! " 
 
 "I think He does, auntie," Estahel answered, with 
 secret, serious meaning which reached Mrs. Clymer not 
 at all; not even when she added, "I think she gets the 
 true line and rule for everything." 
 
 At a point like this Mrs. Clymer would have to drop 
 the discussion. Estahel always managed, she said, to 
 get her own way by jumping some fence or running up 
 against some blind. 
 
 Yet she would look the girl s dress over, as she had 
 done her head and face, and perceive that something 
 was there beyond her reach or altering. So she would 
 say no more, only ceasing, as was her way, with the 
 air of letting alone the incorrigible and inwardly reserv 
 ing a commiseration of herself. 
 
 But when one evening young Mrs. Crestonfield came 
 and sat beside her in the drawing-room, and praised 
 Estabel s style and figure as "peculiarly effective," say 
 ing " She understands herself ; she knows what suits her 
 exactly ; and so few persons do, you know, " Aunt Vera 
 experienced a cheerful conversion, and came to the peace 
 of a comfortable conclusion, according to her habit of 
 resting at last in the compensations of the inevitable ; 
 admitting to herself that she might as well leave Esta- 
 bel to her own little pertinacities in such things, since 
 they seemed sometimes, with a sort of simpleton s luck, 
 to turn to a curious, accidental advantage, after all. 
 
 Her conviction did not go far enough, however, to 
 relieve her mind of other perplexing responsibilities ; 
 she could not leave to Estabel her social choice and 
 freedom; she could not trust her with the shaping of 
 her own associations and her true and natural self-ex 
 pression in them. It was impossible for her to imagine 
 that here also a finer nature might assert itself; that 
 here also Estabel might instinctively "understand, and 
 know exactly what befitted her, as indeed few do." 
 That conception and admission were at present far beyond
 
 ONLY JUST BEHIND HER FACE. 241 
 
 Aunt Vera. She appraised not by intrinsic value, which 
 would set its own real mark in its own due time and 
 place, but by the passing, superficial estimate of a very 
 small and superficial world. 
 
 This small and superficial world was presently to 
 receive a singular small shock. The uncompromising 
 young nature forced into contact with it had something 
 of the yet undiscovered property of dynamite. Pressed 
 a little beyond its bearing, it exploded its way out of 
 limit. There is something grand and generous in such 
 expansion ; it makes way through rude obstacle for bet 
 ter condition. For the moment, however, it startles; 
 it scatters things ; people run away from it.
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 
 
 ESTABEL notwithstanding the Chilstone opposition, 
 in which Corinna still led her little set simply because 
 she had so begun to lead, and to resign in that point 
 would have been to resign leadership altogether and 
 follow with the rest was becoming a success. It 
 might be only here, just now, and for a little time ; it 
 was with an accidental party, with whom she might 
 hereafter, as she had said, have nothing more to do. 
 It related merely to this little summer holiday at Pe- 
 quant and the casual holiday amusement to which she 
 could contribute. So she supposed, in her unconscious 
 ness of making deeper impression in her own honest 
 way ; and so Mrs. Clymer insisted, when urging any 
 advance or concession to the prominent gay coterie 
 which demonstratively held the floor. 
 
 "Those quietly exalted people are too high," she de 
 clared. "They have really nothing to do with every-day 
 movement. They are away up in the firmament, and 
 of no earthly use. They don t carry the tide." 
 
 "I don t care for the tide," said Estabel. "It 
 would only leave me high and dry, or fling me on the 
 rocks. I d rather sail by the North Star." 
 
 The tide set out one day to cast away a little plea 
 sure boat. 
 
 A little girl not more than fifteen arrived at the 
 hotel with her father. In her boarding-school vacation 
 he was giving her a "good time." The child had no 
 mother. He was a rich man, had made his own money,
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 243 
 
 and knew nothing intermediate between the counting- 
 room accumulation and the taking possession, with its 
 results, of the world, its consequence and delights, which 
 he supposed lay easily open all about him, only awaiting 
 the time when he should choose to present his claim. 
 That was to be, in his full intent, when his little Olym- 
 pia, all he had or cared for on the earth except his 
 money, and that but for her sake, should be quite grown 
 up. How strange it is that this dear and sacred motive 
 may be so crudely illustrated that the world will only 
 jeer and laugh! 
 
 A lovely heart idyl was reciting itself in the presence 
 and among the forms of this little summer crowd at 
 Pequant ; and the summer crowd thought it was a funny 
 farce. 
 
 Estabel saw, in caricature, what she might have come 
 to. 
 
 The father and daughter had taken together a beau 
 tiful round of journey. They had been to Trenton and 
 Niagara; they had sailed down the St. Lawrence among 
 the Thousand Islands ; they had come through the 
 White Mountain grandeurs ; now they had brought up 
 by the mighty limit line of the glorious, all-surround 
 ing sea. 
 
 They had been conspicuous, in a certain way, every 
 where ; they always had the best places at table, and 
 the most obsequious attendance ; for the head waiters 
 had golden fees, and the palms of lesser personal servi 
 tors were crossed with uncalculated frequent silver. 
 
 They had been dressed up all the way ; for traveling, 
 for dining, for driving, for evening display, their ap 
 pointments had been of the most lavish, most costly, 
 most varied, most splendid. "My little Olympia shall 
 have everything, " Mr. Tucker said to those with whom 
 he fell, or struggled, into conversation. 
 
 But he could not give her everything. 
 
 He could not give her a place here among the elect
 
 244 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 of Peaceport and Topthorpe. He could not even give 
 her a dance, though he brought her into the evening 
 assembly decked like a stage princess or fairy queen, 
 unless he danced with her himself. This he did, loyally 
 and devotedly when the half-formed quadrille set did 
 not, as sometimes happened, melt away from them and 
 fill up elsewhere, to their innocent surprise ; although 
 with his half-million dollars and his only forty-two 
 years, he might, with a different savoir faire, have 
 found partners for himself, and begun possibly at that 
 end to accomplish his affectionate paternal purpose. 
 
 Olympia Tucker danced as she dressed, in ornate 
 fashion. She did beautiful steps, that had been alto 
 gether discarded by the initiated. She glissaded, chas- 
 seed, pas-le-basqued, made little cuts with her slender 
 heels, curtseyed with a sweep that demanded space be 
 hind her, which was sometimes cleared and sometimes 
 not ; in the latter contingency there was collision, upon 
 which she would swiftly reverse her curtsey, with a 
 little French "pardonnez " really due from the other 
 side. 
 
 She was "great fun," the young observers decreed; 
 and in a more or less covert way they made the most of 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Tucker made scrape-acquaintance with the young 
 swells upon the piazza and in the bowling alleys ; they 
 were willing he should offer them the manly cigar, or 
 opulently pay the scot for a rolling match ; it evidently 
 pleased him, and "among men " it did not matter. 
 In the evening drawing-room they had no use for him. 
 
 One night he broke out of Coventry not knowing 
 perhaps that he had been in it. He seized a fortuitous 
 opportunity and introduced Fred Crestonfield to his 
 daughter. And Fred Crestonfield took her out for a 
 waltz, but he lifted his handsome eyebrows over his 
 shoulder at his compeers grouped and wondering in a 
 corner. When he had landed her again at her father s
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 245 
 
 side, and she had childlikely thanked him, he gave the 
 word and the joke to the others. "It s your turn now, 
 the rest of you," he said, with a laugh. "Give her a 
 good show." 
 
 And the hint took. For that one evening poor little 
 Olympia Tucker was to be fooled to the top of her 
 hent ; she was to be made a belle and then, of course, 
 let down again. 
 
 The whisper went round among some of the girls. 
 It happened to reach Estabel. "It is a shame! " she 
 said, and refused Fred Crestonfield, who came to ask 
 her for a cotillon. And no dance would she take part 
 in, while over and over again the victim of the sport 
 was being led out, scrambled for, led out again, and 
 put through all her flourishes, to her own delight, which 
 innocently accentuated all, and to that of the quizzing, 
 romping set who took up her style in a just sufficient 
 mimicry exquisitely to amuse themselves, and not to 
 flout her openly and without disguise. 
 
 "This is real dancing. You have set us a good ex 
 ample," said one of her partners in a gay round. "We 
 had almost forgotten our dancing school." And Olym 
 pia thought she was complimented. 
 
 The girl wore a dress of gold-colored gauze, ribbon- 
 striped, which shimmered around her in expanse of 
 three full skirts over silk of the same hue. At the 
 waist a golden band gathered in the rotundity; heavy 
 gold bracelets were on her arms; a great, gay wreath 
 of yellow honeysuckles that had come in a box of finery 
 from Paris, and was of course all right, crowned her 
 head and fell in sprays upon her shoulders. 
 
 "Cinderella in her pumpkin coach! " said one. 
 
 "Queen o the May," declared another. 
 
 And with her evident delighted triumph, her flushed 
 acceptance of a central consequence, her conspicuous 
 coronal, the name took. For the brief hour, of which she 
 suspected not the mockery, she was to be May Queen.
 
 246 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel sat looking on, divining all ; her flimsy little 
 handkerchief and lace fan crushed in an angry grasp; 
 ready to spring, to smite, to cry out. 
 
 Twice she had started to go to Mr. Tucker, and bid 
 him take his child away ; and twice her heart had failed 
 her, as she saw the glow of his, warm with a loving 
 satisfaction, shining yes, tenderly brimming in his 
 watching eyes. 
 
 But the moment came. 
 
 A cotillon was turned into a reel the Coquette. 
 
 Olympia s turn came to go down the contradance. 
 
 Hands were outstretched to her; heads leaned for 
 ward ; each young masculine pretended to be eager, 
 anxious to be chosen. She thought it was all real ; she 
 flitted from one to another up and down, butterfly fash 
 ion, until she had passed the entire line ; then turned, 
 and with a merry galop sped up outside and down 
 again, alone, leading the whole troop after her. She 
 certainly did in her gleeful intoxication provoke to fur 
 ther humoring. 
 
 "Form for the Boulanger, " came the order for a 
 second change; and the great circle of dancers spread 
 out around the room. 
 
 The basket figure the grand right and left the 
 all hands round and reversed, were danced ; then the 
 youth who had assumed the direction of the medley and 
 gave the signals for the music, held up his hand. The 
 players struck into the "May Queen" with spirit. 
 
 Up to this point, the elder lookers-on had compre 
 hended nothing but the merriment. Many of them did 
 not quite approve the apparent fact that it was the 
 keener for the ingenuous exultation of the little flower- 
 crowned damsel. But nobody, even if any of them had 
 known all that Estabel Charlock knew, could have in 
 terfered without making a painful eclaircissement . 
 Chaperons had sent out anxious glances, had lifted 
 finger or fan warningly to their young charges ; but the
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 247 
 
 climax came, and quite beyond their apprehension ; be 
 yond that, very likely, of any but the chief participants. 
 
 "All forward and back," was the call. "Chassez to 
 partners ; chassez across ; forward again ; back, leaving 
 first lady in centre." 
 
 Olympia Tucker had been first lady in the top qua 
 drille, and at the head of the reel. Her partner led 
 her out and left her. 
 
 The music, in gay, rapid measure, went on. A few 
 voices began to hum, while feet kept time, and one or 
 two broke forth with words ; 
 
 " Of all the glad new year, mother, 
 
 The maddest, merriest day ; 
 For I m to be Queen o the May, mother, 
 I m to be Queen o the May ! " 
 
 Of course there were pretext and cover in the familiar 
 inspiration of the tune ; but the application was too 
 patent ; and when, with a laugh, " First lady pas seul " 
 was ordered almost simultaneously, it was manifest that 
 the clock had struck, and Cinderella was deserted. 
 
 She stood bewildered in the middle of the great room 
 under the blaze of the chandelier ; there was the whirl 
 of a gay ring of laughing couples, matched as might 
 happen ; under the exchange of partners and the general 
 wild scamper, the escape from a confessed insult was 
 feebly made ; the fellow who had danced with Olympia 
 was tying his shoe somewhere in a corner. 
 
 Olympia Tucker stood stock-still. 
 
 This had not been expected. In the melde she might 
 have made her unsupported retreat. In fact, the whole 
 affair had taken unpremeditated shape, one thing incit 
 ing another ; and more than half the company were in 
 voluntary, uncomprehending accessories. 
 
 There was but the one painful moment. 
 
 Mr. Tucker strode forward from the doorway. 
 
 But a girlish figure was before him; a girl s arm
 
 248 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 was round his daughter s waist; an imperious young 
 hand was lifted, outspread, repellant, toward the band. 
 The music stopped. 
 
 "You are mean, cruel! Every one of you!" rang 
 out upon the offenders ears in a clear, indignant voice. 
 And Estabel Charlock walked down the room, her arm 
 still round Olympia s waist; on the other side, her 
 father drew her hand within his own. 
 
 The next morning the Tuckers had gone from Pe- 
 quant. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer rejoiced at one thing in the midst of 
 her angry dismay ; she had already mentioned in the 
 house that she would leave on Monday. 
 
 Between the Thursday hop and the Monday departure 
 was a wearisome time to Estabel. Aunt Vera was al 
 most too much displeased for words, yet she could not 
 be Aunt Vera without words ; and the words came, in 
 little sudden whips, without preface or warning. 
 
 " It was none of your business, " she said sharply, 
 when Estabel was folding a dress for her. 
 
 "It seemed to me it was somebody s business. But 
 I am very sorry for you Aunt Vera. I can t 
 seem to help being a trouble." 
 
 "Why could n t the girl go and sit down? " 
 
 "Perhaps she would have rushed and screamed if she 
 had stirred. She stood there rigid." 
 
 "And now you may stand rigid. You 11 be frozen 
 fast enough. And just as you had begun to be warmed 
 up to. It s beyond all patience." 
 
 "I do suppose it is as you look at it. Aunt Vera; 
 and I m very sorry. But I couldn t do any other 
 way." 
 
 "Very well. Perhaps you ll find out what way 
 you can do now. / can t advise you." 
 
 This was how it was in their own rooms. Outside, 
 in the small opportunity that Estabel gave, there cer 
 tainly was a change, but an indefinite one. She was
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 249 
 
 not remanded to Coventry ; there had been justice and 
 heroism in her rebuke and interference; there was gen 
 erosity and sympathy enough to recognize that; but 
 these had been too pronounced; "it was exceedingly 
 irregular, my dear!" It "would not do" to cut, in 
 that fashion, across polite lines ; links were intricate ; 
 a whole social order could not be broken into with one 
 sweeping assault; the world is shy of fierce young 
 iconoclasm. 
 
 Estabel was even admired for what she had done, 
 but it was with a very cautious reservation. "It was 
 not at all wise," the chaperons said. "It should have 
 been left to us." And although they were kindly civil, 
 they no longer drew her in among them. Even Mrs. 
 Bvithwaite said to her, "My dear, it is never best to 
 make a scene." 
 
 "But, Mrs. Brithwaite, wasn t the scene made al 
 ready ? " Estabel asked her wistfully. She could hardly 
 bear to have Mrs. Brithwaite s friendship lessen. 
 
 It was very bad," the lady owned; "and you were 
 brave and generous ; but perhaps you did too much. 
 Perhaps, indeed, the young person got a wholesome 
 lesson." 
 
 " Dear Mrs. Brithwaite ! \ If you could have heard 
 what she said to me ! I suppose I have been a fool. 
 I should not have cared so sillily, only I thought my 
 dear father was pleased to have me noticed. He thinks 
 so much of me. 
 
 The tears started in Estabel s eyes as she repeated 
 the words ; and there was a moisture in Mrs. Brith 
 waite s as she heard. 
 
 "And what did you say to that, dear? " 
 
 "I told her the fools were on the other side, and 
 that there weren t but two or three of them, anyway; 
 that there were lots of kind hearts in the room all the 
 time." 
 
 Then Mrs. Brithwaite kissed her.
 
 250 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "You must come right back into your own place, 
 Estabel, " she said. "There are to be charades tomor 
 row night, and we shall want you." 
 
 "Thank you for everything dear Mrs. Brith- 
 waite. I understand. But I have acted enough." 
 The last words were said with a touch of proud, yet 
 gentle self-satire, for which her friend liked her the 
 better. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer was considerably appeased when Estabel 
 told her of this conversation. But she still said, "It 
 won t greatly signify. There are n t enough Mrs. 
 Brithwaites to count." 
 
 "I think there are, Aunt Vera, " answered Estabel. 
 "And I think it depends a good deal on which side of 
 yourself you present, how people and what sort of 
 people take you. Don t you remember how much 
 trouble you had once, to teach me to offer things by the 
 handle?" 
 
 That evening Estabel stepped out of her own room 
 into a balcony that ran across that front of the house. 
 Several apartments opened on to it; it was a quiet, 
 upstairs, ladies resort. 
 
 Aunt Vera was busy writing letters ; they were ta 
 citly agreed not to appear in the drawing-room just yet ; 
 later, Mrs. Clymer meant to drop in for half an hour; 
 she by no means intended a self -banishment. 
 
 The shadow of a great tree and the projection of a 
 blind fastened open at right angles shielded Estabel 
 where she sat, on a low wicker chair just outside her 
 own sashed door. 
 
 Steps approached from the farther corner of the wing, 
 and two persons paused just beyond the screening blind, 
 without, she thought, perceiving her. Afterward, she 
 doubted. They took possession of a settee that had 
 been drawn forward to the rail, and sat with their 
 backs to her. If she had been within her room, that 
 warm, still, summer night, when doors and windows
 
 THE MAY QUEEN. 251 
 
 were all open, they would have been near enough for 
 her to hear what she did hear presently. In her after 
 thought it occurred to her as quite possible that she had 
 been meant to hear. 
 
 The comers were Corinna Chilstone and another young 
 person to whom Corinna had violently attached herself, 
 or permitted herself to be violently appropriated by, of 
 late. 
 
 "She ll be dropped now, of course," said the other 
 young person. 
 
 "Thank goodness, I ve got nothing to drop. I never 
 picked her up. Aunt Brithwaite and Mary will have 
 that knot to cut." 
 
 "That Char-lock, you mean," said the companion, 
 with stupid endeavor at some pun that was not there. 
 
 " I said nothing about a lock of any sort if it 
 could be cut, " rejoined Corinna, with a snub as stupid. 
 She was evidently out of humor in every sense of the 
 word. 
 
 The truth was, she had been snubbed herself by Aunt 
 Brithwaite, a little while before, when she had spoken 
 to her of that same inevitable "dropping" which would 
 come now. 
 
 "She will drop up, you will find," Mrs. Brithwaite 
 had answered coolly. "Courage and nobleness always 
 do, whatever mistakes they may appear to make." 
 
 So Corinna was cross with her newly chosen friend, 
 who on her part was forbearing; not that she had 
 such all-enduring fondness for the girl herself as 
 amounted to the blessed Pauline charity, but she did 
 wish very much to be intimate with the Brithwaites. 
 
 "She goes to your school, doesn t she? " The ques 
 tion was asked as with sympathetic deploring sense of 
 such unwarrantable intrusion. 
 
 Corinna thanked goodness again. " That s all over, " 
 she said. "Satterwood s getting to be much too com 
 mon. Ever so many of us are leaving this year. I m
 
 252 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 going to Madam Sanjan s." She spoke the name \vith 
 as much complacent consequence as if the first thing she 
 would have to learn under the new tuition would not he 
 to pronounce properly "Madame Saint- Jean." 
 
 "Thank goodness, too!" said Estahel, barely under 
 her breath, as she got up and walked away. 
 
 She went back to Topthorpe with her aunt on Monday, 
 almost jubilant under her cloud of misadventure ; for 
 which, indeed, she took herself to task presently, won 
 dering if she ought to tell Aunt Vera this that she had 
 heard and was so glad of. 
 
 She was determined, however, that she would not go 
 to Madame Saint- Jean s, and she thought she had a 
 right so to determine.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 THINGS: AND SPIRIT. 
 
 THE tide of a certain fickle fashion had ebbed away 
 from Mr. Satterwood s school. And Mr. Satterwood 
 was not sorry. 
 
 Madame Saint- Jean taught in French. No American 
 was spoken within the school precincts. In this way 
 the young Topthorpe girls were to be trained into good 
 Americans, such as should hereafter go to Paris. 
 
 Madame Saint- Jean s terms were forty dollars a quar 
 ter, while Mr. Satterwood s charge was only twenty-five. 
 Madame Saint-Jean limited her number of pupils strictly 
 to fifty, while Mr. Satterwood s was elastic at seventy- 
 five. These last two conditions kept the new school 
 free from many who, however good Americans they 
 might be, would not, in all probability, be of the elect 
 for that hereafter in hope of which the chosen were 
 rejoicing. "Le meilleur monde ce n est pas tout le 
 monde, " one of madame s patronesses said to her 
 with Topthorpian idiom and accent in very compla 
 cent French. 
 
 Mr. Satterwood s school had outgrown such boundary. 
 All his second-floor rooms were thrown together now, as 
 class-rooms. The first class held the original room, and 
 the few in it who had been there from the beginning still 
 maintained a certain tone of discriminative privilege 
 which shut from its close communion the unincorporate 
 multitude. But the influence was feeble. The multi 
 tude did not know that it was excluded. Practically, 
 the excluded were the exclusives themselves.
 
 254 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 At Madame Saint-Jean s, where the educational stam 
 pede had established a commonalty untouched of the 
 common, there was the opposite drawback to an entire 
 complacency. Where all was aristocratic, there was no 
 immediate distinction. There was a touch of tameness 
 in the equality. The satisfaction resulted outside in 
 general contact. To be one of "madame s girls" was 
 to be Tip-Topthorpian in young society. 
 
 Mr. Satterwood was not sorry. It had been greatly 
 his own doing, the effect of his own quiet self-showing 
 in the ruling principles of comparative estimate. He 
 believed in humanity, in personality, in character ; not 
 in clique, mould, facsimile. He wanted mind and soul 
 to educate, individuality to study and draw forth. Each 
 pupil was to him herself, no matter who her father was 
 or in what street she lived. Real family, real inherit 
 ance, of the strong, the high, the noble, he valued and 
 revered. Artificial pseudo-dignities were to him no 
 dignities at all. He came from the land of old heredi 
 tary honors, but it was the living perpetuation of an 
 absolute honor that he solely recognized. Any other 
 pretense, here in America, seemed to him, an English 
 man, the most anomalous absurdity. So the pretenders 
 found him out ; he was not half English enough ; the 
 enthusiasm of their patronage reacted. 
 
 The ebbing of one tide, nevertheless, was the flowing 
 in of another. As the waters that obeyed the fashion 
 pulse retreated, a purer current came through quieter 
 channels. Girls were sent to him by carefully wise 
 parents, from homes of a higher thought and culture ; 
 the neighboring university town was represented, not 
 withstanding the then practical difficulty of distance; 
 and from much farther off, judges and senators daugh 
 ters came, suitable temporary homes being found for 
 them in the city, as was easy in that comparatively un- 
 crowded, Arcadian day ; one house was opened near his 
 own by Mr. Satterwood himself, and put in charge of a
 
 THINGS: AND SPIRIT. 255 
 
 discreet, kind matron, to meet the growing need. 
 Everything was changed; the old element was super 
 seded. 
 
 Estabel found choice of friendship among the choice. 
 But for Aunt Vera s change toward her, her cold giving 
 up of hope and ambition in her behalf, and maintenance 
 of a mere duty attitude and negative kindness in the 
 charge she had undertaken, the young girl would have 
 been very happy. 
 
 Margery Wyman, from Montpelier, whose father and 
 mother were in Washington during the season of Mr. 
 Wyman s congressional duties, was one of these inci 
 dental friends, and became intimate in Mount Street. 
 
 "All very well, " Mrs. Clymer persisted, when she 
 spoke at all of the present aspect of affairs. "But you 
 will never live in Montpelier. It is only for the time 
 being. It will all come to an end, and then where will 
 you be? You will never be in a set in Topthorpe." 
 
 "I don t care for a set. Bother a set," Estabel re 
 plied with the terseness Mr. Josh Billings has more 
 recently used in his remark concerning a fly. "I can t 
 bear a set of china. There are lots of ugly and use 
 less things in it. I d rather pick up nice separate bits 
 as I go along." 
 
 "Odds and ends," rejoined Mrs. Clymer contemptu 
 ously. "That isn t society." 
 
 Estabel s illustration, like many of her ideas and ex 
 pressions, was ahead of time. The day of diverse, mis 
 cellaneous bric-a-brac was not yet. 
 
 "Let her alone. She may go to Washington yet. 
 And you never know who mayn t be in the White 
 House, " said Mr. Clymer. In his business way he 
 knew the value of single associations, as well as of ad 
 mittance, now and then, into a "ring." The ring, 
 again, had not then become a permanent and all-engor 
 ging system of affairs. 
 
 Estabel grew in these days. In wisdom and in stature,
 
 256 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 like the Divine Archetype of youth, she gained and 
 adapted to herself, through a divine gift and ordering, 
 that which was to make her being. In mind and body 
 the elements of a grand womanhood were forming her 
 toward their beautiful result. She did not know how 
 she was changing. That was because it was not change, 
 but a true evolution. 
 
 She was freed from so many petty chafes and cramps. 
 She was not forced every day to feel or remember that 
 she was ostracized. She met girls on the street who 
 did not bow to her. To the Corinna Chilstones she was 
 still the same "strange girl" relegated the more to 
 that position now that there was not even the slen 
 der claim of school fellowship whom their mothers 
 would not allow them to accost. But this did not chafe 
 her in the least. They had their world ; she had hers. 
 She was as little solicitous about it as the bee, in her 
 busy, happy ways, is solicitous about the ways of moth 
 or wasp. 
 
 She had Mr. Satterwood ; she had the Gladmother. 
 She had then, after and along with these, her dear girl 
 friends Lilian, Margery, Mary Brithwaite, and the 
 others of her earlier, tentative intimacy. She was loyal 
 to them all. She rejoiced in every added one. But 
 she added none, except as a crystal adds that which is 
 essential to its own clear nature. Her accretions, like 
 her growth, were homogeneous. 
 
 But it was Mr. Satterwood and the Gladmother in 
 whose spirit and teaching the crystal was forming ; in 
 whose influences it was finding that which their solvent 
 touch tested and proved akin. 
 
 Something seemed liberated to freer assertion and 
 more frequent utterance in the master s daily instruc 
 tion. The audience impels or restrains the speaker, in 
 the moment of his self-giving; his best, his whole, only 
 comes forth when it feels welcome and response. Mr. 
 Satterwood had now among his pupils the predominance
 
 THINGS: AND SPIRIT. 257 
 
 of a different element from that which had prevailed 
 when he began his work in Topthorpe under the aus 
 pices limited and controlling of the little, impor 
 tant "set " of Topthorpe matrons. 
 
 Not that he had been weakly controlled ; he was sim 
 ply compelled to a waiting reserve. He would gladly 
 have led his scholars as we are all being led by a 
 Divine Wisdom up through the intervening steps of 
 a careful training, to a larger comprehension ; inward, 
 through a quickening of their inert natures, to a keener 
 sympathy of intuition. But they would not take the first 
 steps ; they were hard with a premature and petty world- 
 liness, against any penetration or energizing of a spirit 
 ual force. 
 
 Now he found it different. Estabel Charlock was 
 not the only one to whom he could talk, when the im 
 pulse moved him to words of more than mere school 
 drill or outside explanation ; when some point in a les 
 son showed relation beyond mere circumstance or 
 mechanical law, and touched the secret heart of reason, 
 the very life of fact. History natural science above 
 all, the religious exercise with which he began the day 
 stirred him often to an earnest comment or exposi 
 tion ; and he forgot the minutes and the book, in the 
 joy of a grand seizure of the central thing, or a beauti 
 ful expansion and cheering application of a holy saying. 
 He had a way of fixing his intense eyes upon some one 
 person or object, as if in a hypnotic attraction, and 
 unconsciously holding his point of vision as he held his 
 inward sight, clear, strong, and unmoving, till the 
 thought was wrought out, and the perception of his own 
 soul had taken form for the perception of others. Very 
 often he looked this way into Estabel Charlock s eyes; 
 and then she forgot also all but that which was as if 
 some aiigel spoke it out of a heaven of truth. Other 
 girls sometimes grew uneasy under his gaze, blushed, 
 dropped their eyelids this recalled, interrupted him.
 
 258 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel never interrupted; she was out of herself; 
 whether even in the body or out of the body, she neither 
 knew nor reminded herself; she was caught up, and 
 listened. 
 
 He talked one morning about those wonderful, strange 
 words of the Christ, in which He told men, unquali 
 fiedly, that all should be granted to every human soul s 
 demand. 
 
 "Ask, and it shall be given you. Seek, and ye 
 shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you. 
 For he that asketh, receiveth; and he that seeketh, find- 
 eth; and to him that knocketh, it shall be opened. 
 
 "It is not conditional; and there is no exception," 
 said the master. "It is a promise on demand. It is a 
 pledge of every tiling to the want and claim. Every 
 thing is yours; ye are Christ s; Christ is God s. The 
 way is opened straight to the Divine Power and Will. 
 The links are let down from above, and the chain is put 
 into every human being s hand. If you want with your 
 whole nature if you ask with your whole faith that 
 will not be denied if you seek with your whole, unfal 
 tering diligence if you knock with all your strength 
 you shall have, you shall find, you shall be let in to 
 your desire. Whatever it is." 
 
 "Not if it is wrong?" Estabel Charlock put the 
 question that she could not help. 
 
 Mr. Satterwood bent his eyes yet more keenly upon 
 her. "Yes. That is the law. It is the glory of it 
 and the awfulness. It rewards; it punishes. It is 
 promise and terrible warning. Just before it is de 
 clared, the other words are put in record they may 
 have been said in that order or afterward, but they are 
 in inseparable connection, Give not that which is 
 holy unto the dogs. Cast not your pearls your 
 heavenly privilege and franchise before the swine of 
 your lower nature ; lest they trample them under their 
 feet and turn again and rend you.
 
 THINGS: AND SPIRIT. 259 
 
 "What does it all mean? It means that we may 
 choose our way, .and take it. That we may covet a 
 thing, and get it. That we may desire our place and 
 determine upon it, and gain it. Sooner or later, by 
 more or less of toil and life-spending, through more 
 or less of delay and disappointment, we may arrive at 
 any aim whatsoever. There is no distinction. For 
 blessing or bane, for salvation or damnation, we may be 
 and may possess as we elect. It is sure to come. If 
 not in this world, we must suppose in the next, or the 
 next after unless we change. For the declaration 
 stands. God rewardeth every man according to his 
 works. Judas went to his own place. 
 
 "You are at the choosing point. What will you 
 choose ? Place, position, influence, notice, admiration, 
 money, beauty, luxury, the envy of the many ? All 
 these which are of the kingdom of the world, offer them 
 selves to your asking and seeking and knocking if 
 you ivill give your whole being to the search and the 
 demand and the determination; if you will fall down 
 and worship the Satan that is in them. For it is the 
 satan the self in them which requires condition ; 
 which makes bargain with you for your soul. And 
 yet all these things, or any one of them, may come to 
 you without self-seeking, as the will and gift of God. 
 They may come to you by the way. Then they are 
 righteous ; they are fulfillment and command of God, 
 sign and means for the work you are to do. Seek the 
 kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and all these 
 things shall be added unto you. For your Father know- 
 eth that ye have need of them. Covet earnestly the 
 best gifts. 
 
 Mr. Satterwood shut the book. A silence fell. In 
 that silence he left the word that he had spoken, con 
 densed and brief. Its amplification, its appliance, re 
 mained for the individual life. It was the seed of the
 
 260 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 It may easily have been that the fowls of the air and 
 the thorns and the stones caught some of it as it fell, 
 and turned it to uselessness or contrary use. They who 
 had never reached up to the best may have taken coun 
 tenance and comfort, even from the least, the mere 
 earthly, that was in it. They may have grasped at the 
 promise of such success as they most coveted, the 
 beauty, the riches, the luxury, the power, thinking that 
 then they would make the good use of them, do the good 
 errand with them ; forgetting that it is they, and not 
 the righteousness, that are to be the added things ; that 
 separately, and first, they are the promise of the Evil. 
 But surely some seed found way to good and open and 
 honestly waiting ground. 
 
 Estabel went with it, at her earliest chance, to the 
 Gladmother. As a child carries a flower, or a bright 
 pebble, or some quite curious, unknown thing to its 
 mother, she had come to carry her treasures of new 
 thought, her half-solved mysteries of new knowledge, 
 to the old, wise, young- with-angels -youth woman. 
 Until Estabel knew the Gladmother, she had had only 
 aunts. 
 
 She and Lilian sat, literally and in spirit, at the feet 
 of her who in body and in spirit had been hallowed by 
 the heaven-touch; whose love kept her so close to them, 
 and whose life was so near the infinite unveiling. 
 
 They asked her of these things ; of how all these 
 different possibilities could be ; how the low and the 
 high, even the false and the true, could be of one gift 
 and promise. And about the terrible, ignorant choosing. 
 
 And she told them: "Live in the heart-world, little 
 girls in the inside of things not in the vain show. 
 Get behind the contradiction. In all these things is 
 the life of my spirit. We are to learn that. And to 
 say, Direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and 
 bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and the works of thy 
 commandments. That loving thee above all things,
 
 THIXGS : AND SPIRIT. 261 
 
 and yet in all things, we may obtain thy pro 
 mises, which exceed all that we can desire. That we 
 may so pass through things temporal, as finally to lose 
 not the things eternal. The eternal things are real 
 the reality of the signs. We shall lose nothing, we 
 shall let go of nothing, except falsehood and wrong. 
 In that Christ died, he died unto sin, once; hut in that 
 he liveth, he liveth unto God. It s all in the Gospel, 
 children; it s the good news; everything is God s, and 
 He gives everything to us." 
 
 With words from the Word, with hits from the 
 prayers of the ages, she went on to answer them as it 
 was given her in that moment to speak. She spoke as 
 if involuntarily ; almost as within herself. That which 
 she had lived hy was present with her, to meet all ques 
 tion as it had met her own in all time of her own need. 
 
 She made them see in some degree how life was not 
 meant to be an antagonism of conflicting elements, but 
 in all things one. How the "Satan in things" is the 
 self in them ; the separating from, and losing of the very 
 life in all; how the "first-seeking" of God s Tightness 
 is the joining together and the filling full. 
 
 " Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do 
 all to the glory of God, " she said again. "Let God 
 shine all through, from the heart to the outside, and be 
 reflected back again. That is his glory and what makes 
 us glad. For it is God that worketh in us, in the 
 very littlest and commonest things, to will and to do 
 according to his good pleasure. It is the will of God 
 concerning you. For it is your Father s good pleasure 
 to give you the kingdom. How plain and how dear 
 it is!" 
 
 She had to check herself; the words and meanings 
 linked, reminded, crowded so. They were all so famil 
 iar to her that she feared she might forget the newness 
 in them for the other, younger ones, and hurry too 
 much upon them. She fell into a gentle silence, which
 
 262 .SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 was less the end of speech than repose upon the abund 
 ant reserve from which speech flowed. 
 
 "Talk more, Gladmother, please," begged Lilian. 
 "Tell us what it all says to you. We can see that it 
 is there, when you repeat it and put it together like 
 that. But we want it in small words. Cut the meat 
 into bits for us. We are only little children, you know." 
 
 "That is just it." said the old lady. "Be little 
 children. Live in little bits, and be content. Don t 
 wish or worry for a big piece of anything. The big 
 piece is the Lord s. Take the bread as He breaks it 
 to you. Remember the bigness and the multiplying 
 is all in His heart, and yours. Every crumb signi 
 fies the whole loaf. Don t crowd and struggle, among 
 things or against other people. Come in, nearer, out of 
 the scramble, close to the Giver, where there is plenty 
 of room. Come out of the wilderness, into the home. 
 And then be patient with the rest till they come in. 
 Till they realize, I mean, that they are in. That the 
 Lord s house is in the midst, and all around. It holds 
 every one of them every one of them is born into it 
 only they don t know. They are blundering around 
 with shut eyes in the dark corners. Most of us are like 
 babies, or blind kittens, for a while. But we are alive, 
 and are going to grow, and to come to our sight. The 
 Lord waits, from generation to generation." 
 
 "But we have only one generation to live in," said 
 Estabel. "And it is perverse; it is confusing; our 
 world is all mixed up. We can hardly tell which side 
 we are, out or in." 
 
 "It shall all be reconciled," said Mrs. Trubin. "It 
 was what Christ came for to break down the wall of 
 partition, and make both one, as they were from the 
 beginning. When your two eyes see alike, they see one 
 thing. Life was never meant to be divided into two. 
 It is the seamless robe. Body and soul are both given, 
 and shall always be. But the bodily is to be glorified.
 
 THINGS: AND SPIRIT. 263 
 
 It is to be changed in all its form and life, until it is 
 like his who is able by his working to subdue all things 
 unto Himself." 
 
 "Did you understand it all when you were young, 
 Gladmother?" asked Lilian. "Didn t you just want 
 things separate things then? Didn t you want to 
 be beautiful ? but then you were beautiful. You 
 didn t have to want that." 
 
 "I did want. I wasn t beautiful. I think perhaps 
 I should know better how to be, now. It takes a 
 whole life and more than this life to grow to be 
 ready for what God means, and as He means it. Some 
 things only come when you have given them up. I 
 think the Lord lets us stay in the outsides, sometimes, 
 until we are tired, and get loose of them and can come 
 in without dragging their chips and rubbish after us. 
 It s the Temple, you see; He won t have the merchan 
 dise or the confusion in it. But by and by the Temple 
 is to be everywhere, and everything is to be holy, and 
 living is to be worship." 
 
 The two girls looked up into her eyes silently, as if 
 they might read there the vision that she saw. The 
 Gladmother s eyes were lifted up, they could not follow 
 whither. 
 
 Softly, again, the words of Holy Scripture fell from 
 her lips as if their letters became luminous before her 
 in the spirit. 
 
 " It shall come to pass, that in the place where it 
 was said unto them, Ye are not my people, there 
 shall they be called the children of the living God. 
 On the very bells of the horses it is to be written, 
 Holiness unto the Lord. In every place incense shall 
 be offered unto my Name, and a pure offering ; for my 
 Name shall be great among the heathen, saith the Lord 
 of Hosts. Because that is his very Name, signed and 
 declared everywhere. He is the Lord of Hosts, and 
 the hosts shall be all his. The hosts of things, and the
 
 264 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 hosts of souls, together ; when souls see things as He 
 makes them for souls to see. When they find his 
 thoughts in them, and are glad in them with his glad 
 ness and hecause of his word. Unite my heart, 
 make one life for it from the outside and the in to 
 fear thy name. The secret of the Lord is with them 
 that fear Him. And to fear is not to he afraid, hut 
 to see and own with a sweet, awful joy. This is the 
 life that is to come. When we helieve so, how can we 
 be restless with ourselves, or despise anybody else ? 
 The difference is just that some don t know, and some 
 only know a little. But all shall know, from the least 
 unto the greatest. 
 
 The Gladmother leaned back among her cushions. 
 She had talked enough. 
 
 A purple glory shot in a parted ray from her inter 
 cepting crystals, threading through among her ferns, 
 and came across upon the wall behind her overhead. 
 
 The two girls looked up, and saw it there, but the 
 Gladmother did not know. 
 
 It was as if some angel hand had brought a coal from 
 off the altar, and lighted up a fair, attesting sign.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 ASTIGMATISM: AND WINDMILLS. 
 
 IT was not a blithesome winter to Mrs. Clymer. 
 The Pequant episode, which to a woman of stronger 
 social command would have been a passing annoyance, 
 an incident of girlish enthusiasm and extravagance ex 
 cusable for motive and because of an inexperience soon 
 to be outgrown, was a chafing mortification, a pursuing 
 discredit. She remembered it all the time ; she thought 
 nobody else ever forgot it. It did keep coming round 
 to her in distorted, aggravated versions. 
 
 Estabel had taken up some fancied affront, and 
 slapped society in the face. She had rushed into the 
 middle of a dance ; had stopped the music, broken up 
 the evening ; shrieked out something denouncing the 
 whole company. It was a most extraordinary perfor 
 mance ; perfectly theatrical. Whatever the original 
 matter was, she had made it worse ; a family chiefly 
 concerned had left the next day; the Clymers had 
 hardly been spoken to afterward, and had returned to 
 Topthorpe suddenly a little later. It was a great pity; 
 how the poor people must feel! And the girl, of 
 course, had thrown herself hopelessly out of everything. 
 
 More or less of this, civilly covered and restrained, was 
 brought to Mrs. Clymer in remark and question. What 
 was not literally repeated she could imagine. She met 
 all mention with a commendable presence of mind that 
 lasted just long enough for the instant need, and reserved 
 each time an added sting for the bad quarter hours that 
 were counting up into days and weeks.
 
 266 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Oh, it was not at all like that, " she would say 
 easily and smilingly; "the dance was at an end. The 
 poor little overdressed stranger got bewildered she 
 had made rather a goose of herself, and the young peo 
 ple had been amused. Estabel misunderstood and was 
 very indignant ; she did speak out a word or two to the 
 ruder ones, and marched the silly little thing off under 
 her own small wing. It was really funny ; but the best 
 feeling of the company was with her ; the nicest people 
 even praised her. She had been quite a favorite all 
 through the season; and I don t think she lost any 
 thing." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer assumed rather cleverly ; but she as 
 sumed what might have been more readily granted if 
 she had waited for the granting. She would better have 
 let the nice people to their own voluntary leniency. 
 They smiled a little when they heard her rendering of 
 the affair. Mrs. Clymer felt the smile telepathically in 
 her own honestly miserable distance, when she had fired 
 her plucky shot and retreated within her lines. 
 
 Besides, or no little in consequence, she was not 
 well. She had taken an influenza in the early weeks 
 of winter, and it had followed her on and kept her 
 wretched till after the New Year. She said she was 
 tired of everything. She wished she could get away, 
 out of the cold. She wished she could go to Europe. 
 She wished she need not have any worry or responsibil 
 ity. That meant that the responsibility she had chosen 
 to take up had proved too much for her. 
 
 "Why don t you go to Europe, Aunt Vera? " Estabel 
 had asked her. 
 
 "You re one reason," Mrs. Clymer had replied 
 shortly. And then she had repented of the unkindness, 
 and added, "I had always thought I should take you 
 some time, perhaps, after you had finished school. I 
 don t know now. Things in general don t seem to 
 agree with you."
 
 ASTIGMATISM : AND WINDMILLS. 267 
 
 Estabel s generous feeling came up into her face in 
 flushing color and shine of stoutly repressed tears. 
 
 "I am very happy in all but not pleasing you, Aunt 
 Vera. " Her voice shook a little, but it was with the 
 low, strong tremolo of a contained emotion. 
 
 "Why don t you please me, then? " Mrs. Clymer an 
 swered pettishly. "But I suppose it s too late now." 
 
 Then Estabel walked away to a window, and stood 
 there, hiding what would not let her speak again. 
 There was a spasm in her throat, a quiver of her proud, 
 vainly struggling lip, and the full drops that swelled 
 hot within her eyelids brimmed over. 
 
 When she turned round her aunt had left the room, 
 and Ulick North stood in the farther doorway. 
 
 Her telltale handkerchief was crumpled in her hand ; 
 her brow and eyes were red with the restraint that 
 shows heavier trace than easy weeping. 
 
 Ulick saw that there was trouble ; Estabel knew that 
 he could but see. She came straight toward him. 
 
 "It is one of my old bothers," she said. "Don t 
 mind." And she gave him her hand. 
 
 Ordinarily she avoided this action ; for Dr. North 
 had a way of taking but a cool, sliding hold, out of 
 which the offered friendliness had to drop. Estabel 
 wondered if he did so with everybody, or only with 
 her. It was evident, at least, that even in a common 
 hand-shake Ulick North would put no personal demon 
 stration. 
 
 She recollected herself upon the instant, and did not 
 let her own fingers close ; so that it happened that Dr. 
 North found himself for a second s space slightly re 
 taining what would not stay with him. He smiled as 
 they both sat down. 
 
 "What is the matter with Aunt Vera and me? " she 
 questioned him abruptly, as if the interrogation would 
 not more naturally, under the circumstances, have come 
 from him. She did not refer to passing circumstance,
 
 268 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 however, but to normal state. And Dr. North did not 
 treat symptoms, but the ail behind the symptoms. 
 
 "Astigmatism," he said. 
 
 "I suppose that tells me if I understood," said 
 Estabel. 
 
 "Eyes don t focus alike. Objects appear in strained 
 relations. Possibly a difference in line of axis, also. 
 That complicates still more. One sees up and the other 
 down." 
 
 He was doubtless trying to divert the immediate pres 
 sure of her feeling by starting a mental counteraction. 
 
 "Which is right? I don t mean she or I but 
 which way of looking ? " 
 
 "Ah?" There was both ejaculation and interroga 
 tion in the syllable. "Who shall determine? Every 
 man is right in his own eyes and every eye in its own 
 fashion." 
 
 "Especially every woman and each of every wo 
 man s eyes? " 
 
 Then they both laughed. Ulick had got her just 
 where he wanted her to be. 
 
 "She wants to go to Europe, and she says I m the 
 reason she can t go." 
 
 "Oh, no; not the only reason." 
 
 "No. She said one reason. 
 
 "Another is West Gardens; and another, Western 
 shares. Houses going up, and some stocks threatening 
 to go down. It would be the best thing for her. I 11 
 advise it as soon as I see there would be any practical 
 use. Europe cures a good many things that can t get 
 well on this side. And it s a great relief to doctors." 
 
 "Then you don t think I hinder by staying here? 
 There s always my other aunt and Stillwick, you 
 know. " 
 
 "I don t think you hinder anything, except, perhaps, 
 yourself. And I m not sure about that. Haven t 
 you been trying a little bout with a windmill ? " And
 
 ASTIGMATISM: AND WINDMILLS. 269 
 
 Dr. North laughed slightly, glancing sidewise at Es- 
 tahel out of his shrewd eyes, as he sat, leaning forward 
 with his arms along his knees, twisting a bit of paper 
 he had picked up into certain odd shapes. 
 
 "Well. The windmill stopped whirling for a 
 minute, anyway. " 
 
 "How do you pronounce Q-u-i-x-o-t-e? " Dr. North 
 spelled the name of Cervantes s doughty knight as if he 
 did not know what to do with the letters. 
 
 "I don t. I suppose you mean, how would it be 
 proper to pronounce it. The proper way is the reason 
 I don t pronounce it at all. It is the reason I don t do 
 several other things." 
 
 "Exactly. That is sufficiently pronounced. Well, 
 wouldn t the natural derivation from the word in the 
 proper way be something like chaotic ? " 
 
 "Wouldn t you try to stop a windmill if you saw it 
 knocking other people down ? " Estabel answered from 
 the root of the matter, leaving the derivable consequence 
 to take care of itself. 
 
 " AVith my bare hands, and get my arms broken ? I 
 don t know. I believe you would. Perhaps I should 
 only sit still and smoke." 
 
 "And sneer at windmills." 
 
 "Not necessarily. Let them grind their own corn. 
 The sneering is for the simple folk who think it fine to 
 get within sweep of their sails." 
 
 "It s a bad thing to get into the way of putting 
 everything down with a scoff, and then thinking that it 
 is down." 
 
 " Very sententious, Estabel. And you have chosen the 
 right word now. To scoff is only to shove, anyhow. " 
 
 P]stabel looked up at him shyly, a lovely glow in her 
 face. Was it because he felt friendly enough enough 
 in touch with her to call her by her name, or be 
 cause of the honest frankness with which he threw aside 
 irony to acknowledge the right ?
 
 270 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 She met a look; it was only a look. But spirits 
 flash upon each other so, when a word is slow or guards 
 itself. Somehow she felt herself inside a barrier as 
 if the truth in her had found the truth in him, and 
 claimed it. 
 
 It was a great thing, as Sara Sullivant had said, to be 
 tolerated to be "put up with" by Ulick North. 
 To find a little value, a little approval, in his eyes ; to 
 have them lighten upon her with an instant s under 
 standing and assent ; to have her name escape him as if 
 he held her in his thoughts apart from prejudice; as 
 if she had become individual to him, excepted from the 
 common human nature that he so often derided ; that 
 was what was it ? Triumph ? Whether she knew it 
 or not, it was something a great deal sweeter than 
 triumph. 
 
 Was Dr. North s little surrender in their casual tilt 
 of words as sweet to him ? 
 
 In the moment s silence between them which fol 
 lowed, Aunt Vera stepped inside the room upon the 
 deep, soft velvet of her Aubusson carpet, without their 
 notice. 
 
 The woman caught the woman s dawning look in the 
 young girl s face. 
 
 And Ulick North, leaning toward her, his fingers 
 playing with a bit of paper, his eyes upon the gentle 
 bend of her sensitive lips, upon the delicately mantling 
 flush that was giving her again one of her moments of 
 beauty upon the downcast eyelids that had made 
 haste to shut away the involuntary flash what did he 
 mean? 
 
 "That will not do," Mrs. Clymer said to herself, as 
 she stepped back, soundlessly, to make her entry again 
 from behind them,, and with more careful demonstra 
 tion. "And the other thing will never come about in 
 Topthorpe. It is time to break camp if it could be 
 done."
 
 ASTIGMATISM : AND WINDMILLS. 271 
 
 The doorbell rang. Mrs. Clymer spoke to Archibald 
 as he came through from his pantry habitat to answer 
 it. Then she advanced into the room, where she found 
 Ulick now standing with his hat in his hand. 
 
 "Going? " she asked cheerfully. "I did not know 
 you were here. Won t you stay and dine? " 
 
 Dr. North could not stay. He had some patients to 
 see. And he went out through the hall, where Archi 
 bald reopened the door for him which he had just closed 
 upon a declined visitor. 
 
 Aunt Vera turned round to Estabel. That young 
 woman stood where she had risen when Dr. North had 
 taken leave. She had just had time, since he had 
 turned away, to stoop and pick up the twisted bit of 
 paper that he had let fall. Aunt Vera was particular 
 as to any little litter upon her floors or furniture. 
 
 "Why didn t you send for me to see Dr. North? " 
 Mrs. Clymer asked her. "Don t you know that it isn t 
 quite young-ladylike to appropriate a gentleman s visit 
 to yourself ? " 
 
 Estabel colored with a different flush from that 
 which had but just softly subsided. Suddenly she felt 
 ashamed. The twisted paper seemed to develop some 
 latent heat between her fingers. It arraigned her of a 
 motive. She perceived in herself the pleasure of its 
 reminder of the look and tone that had accompanied its 
 handling. Folded up in it was a secret that she would 
 not consciously have searched into, that she would not 
 deliberately have been glad of, but that made her 
 world a little brighter for its being there, and that she 
 instinctively held fast. She was only a little school 
 girl, and Dr. North was a wise, strong, keen- judging 
 man. He criticised her, and made her half indignant, 
 half afraid. Yet there had been that one instant of 
 an equal understanding, a sympathetic recognition, a 
 giving way, even, before her simple word ; and it had 
 made her happy. Dr. North s whole visit to-day had
 
 272 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 been so kindly, so comforting, that it had indeed put 
 Aunt Vera comfortably, and altogether, out of her head. 
 
 Now Aunt Vera stood there, calling her to account ; 
 and more sharply, even, than she knew. 
 
 "He did not ask I did not think he always 
 drops in just as it happens, " she stammered. 
 
 "You will please think the next time. Visitors to 
 my house usually expect to see me. At least, it is 
 proper they should. And don t imagine" she em 
 phasized the words slowly, ominously, looking severely 
 into Estabel s blushing face, and pausing, as if there 
 were something that, after all, could not easily be 
 spoken. 
 
 "Aunt Vera! Hush! " cried Estabel, and flew away 
 with the cry, like a frightened bird. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer picked up the paper that had again been 
 dropped. The inanimate thing had got some strong 
 electric charging in its successive manipulations, by the 
 time Aunt Vera tossed it into the grate. 
 
 If inanimate things could only deliver up their stor 
 age, the world would be alight and alive with lightning 
 revelations. 
 
 "That will do for this time," was the lady s compla 
 cent reflection. "Perhaps it will last till something 
 better can be done. The rest of the winter will have 
 to be worried through, I suppose. But this must stop, 
 right here. It might have answered but it won t. 
 Two such impracticables ! Two bees in the family bon 
 net ! We might as well all go into a lunatic asylum 
 together. " 
 
 Aunt Vera laughed and coughed. The heat of 
 annoyance had died out of her face, and left her pale. 
 She went and sat down close to the fire, threw the 
 paper wisp upon the coals, and laid her head back 
 against the cushion of her chair. Certainly she was not 
 Avell, and things were hard upon her. 
 
 She sat, considering, perplexedly. Mrs. Clymer was
 
 ASTIGMATISM: AND WINDMILLS. 273 
 
 not great in generalship. She made no skillful, patient 
 parallels of approach. She massed her forces, and 
 marched right up against whatever defense of position. 
 Once repulsed, the campaign was over. She retreated 
 across country. 
 
 She would like to take back now all that she had 
 done. She wished she had sent Estabel away to board 
 ing-school, and brought her back to Topthorpe, finished. 
 And yet she knew that Topthorpe would hardly allow 
 anything to be finished that was not finished there ; or 
 any social beginning to be readily made except the be 
 ginning of being born in Topthorpe. 
 
 She had vaguely planned to take her niece, some 
 time, to Europe. Unless, indeed, developments at 
 home should set this happily aside and make it need 
 less. She began to think she had been a goose to take 
 her from Aunt Esther and Cousin Lucy, and the quiet 
 ways and places that they were all used to together, 
 and where things might happen naturally. Estabel had 
 been the only young girl there, to be accounted of ; she 
 had the strong advantage of local comparison. Some 
 flowers grow best and show best in their own woods. 
 The most likely chance for that "other thing" would 
 be back in Stillwick, after all. 
 
 Next winter Estabel would be eighteen. She would 
 have had school enough. She would go back with an 
 added superiority to her surroundings. She would be 
 more companionable than ever to Miss Henslee, more in 
 requisition than ever at the Place. Old Colonel Hens- 
 lee was failing fast. Of course, that would be the 
 wisest way. And she and Mr. Clymer would go abroad. 
 She would shake the dust of Topthorpe off her feet and 
 put the Atlantic between herself and her discomfitures. 
 After things had all come round, they could return se 
 renely, with more pictures, more silks and jewels, more 
 rugs and tapestries, more old relics from the palaces 
 that had emptied themselves into the junk shops, and
 
 274 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 make fresh landing, with a flood tide, at higher water 
 mark. 
 
 Aunt Vera, reaching this brilliant conclusion, felt a 
 good deal better. 
 
 She was glad she had asked Ulick to stay to dinner. 
 It would not do to let him suspect her suspicions. He 
 was a cross grain. It would work just the wrong way. 
 Estabel was a cross-grain; but she was the feminine of 
 it. With a woman, in such things, the cross working 
 is against the grain of her own consciousness. She had 
 made Estabel conscious. Mrs. Clymer felt all this 
 without reasoning it. She was not a reasoning person; 
 but she arrived at conclusions in the facile way of na 
 tures that do not trouble themselves with going deep.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 BZIQUE. 
 
 AUNT VERA looked with satisfaction upon the results 
 she had. now compassed. Estabel kept carefully away 
 from Dr. North, who came to the house much as usual. 
 He never happened now to find her alone. She seemed 
 to have a special ear for his ring, a special sense of his 
 coming. She was out one way as he came in the other, 
 and hastened scrupulously to announce his presence to 
 Aunt Vera. If Aunt Vera were out, she could not be 
 found herself. 
 
 Harry Henslee came too, in the old, easy way. Es 
 tabel laughed and talked with him, listened to his 
 bright commonplace, which she met as brightly, was 
 pleased when he told her of his plans. 
 
 She would not go to any young parties this winter. 
 
 Sometimes, of course, Dr. North and Harry would be 
 at the house together. Estabel would then seem to be 
 alive only on the child side of her. A conundrum or a 
 puzzle, a game of checkers or be"zique, would occupy her 
 with the boy, while the man looked on and thought he 
 understood, being really miles away from understanding 
 at all. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer knitted up her magic balls or practised 
 her new crochet, counting stitches and measuring 
 lengths, or winding wools which she made Ulick hold 
 for her. 
 
 In those days Ulick s calls were short. 
 
 "Oh, isn t that too bad?" Estabel cried one even 
 ing, as a hand at be zique came to an end. "A double
 
 276 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 just ready to declare, and could n t take the last 
 trick ! " 
 
 "There s a good deal of be*zique in human life," re 
 marked Mr. Clymer with complacence at his own per 
 spicacity. 
 
 Dr. North had just come in. 
 
 "People don t play the right cards in time. Isn t 
 it so, Ulick ? " 
 
 "Or the right cards don t come in time," replied the 
 young doctor. "We have to take what turns up for 
 us, and wait all through the game, perhaps, before it 
 does turn up." 
 
 "You see," said Estabel, "one is so apt to hold on 
 to the wrong thing. If I hadn t tried for aces, I 
 might have made kings, and then I lost both, and the 
 lead, and could do nothing with my double when it 
 came." 
 
 "Moral: don t try for too much, and you may get 
 something, " returned Ulick carelessly. 
 
 "Would you be satisfied with that? " demanded Es 
 tabel, forgetting reserve and unheeding personality in 
 eagerness for the abstract conclusion. "I d rather try 
 for the highest, if I only got it as I did now with 
 my last breath." 
 
 " Depends upon what is agreed on for the highest, " 
 Ulick answered, coolly. "I believe in bdzique it is 
 counted very much as elsewhere. The tens and the 
 aces and the people that are all of a sort. And the 
 matches between queens and jacks if they are only 
 jacks of diamonds." 
 
 "The world in a pack of cards," said Mr. Clymer. 
 
 " Everything is a microcosm, if you take a sharp look 
 at it, " returned the doctor. " Been out to-day ? " He 
 had taken a seat beside his uncle. 
 
 Estabel shuffled her cards together and began to deal 
 again, moving slightly in her chair, so that the elder 
 group and the light of the chandelier were behind her.
 
 BfiZIQUE. 277 
 
 Mr. Clymer had rheumatism. He had lately been 
 laid up with a sharp attack. His nephew, in whose 
 professional ability he had strong confidence, had been 
 in attendance. Apart from the value of his services, 
 it was as well, also, to keep professional profit within 
 the family. It was one way by which Uncle Abel could 
 feel that he was comfortably discharging his family 
 obligations. 
 
 "Down-town for an hour at change time. Heard 
 the news ? " 
 
 "Probably not. I don t get the news on change." 
 
 "Chilstone and Marish s notes went to protest." 
 
 Mrs. Clymer threw herself upright in her chair, as if 
 she had been galvanized. She dropped three stitches 
 from her knitting needle, her ball of worsted rolled 
 down upon the carpet, and her eyeglasses slipped off 
 her nose. 
 
 "Failed?" she ejaculated. 
 
 "That s what it s commonly called," returned her 
 husband quite composedly. 
 
 "You don t mean so? Why didn t you tell of it 
 before ? What will they do ? " 
 
 "Just what other men do. Settle up the best way 
 they can, and go on again." 
 
 " But they the family ? How will they live ? " 
 Mrs. Clymer seemed almost in a hurry to hear that they 
 would not be able to live at all. Somehow, the more 
 there are killed and wounded, the more interesting 
 as news a disaster appears to be. 
 
 Mr. Clymer laughed. "As they always have lived, 
 probably. You won t get rid of them out of Mount 
 Street, Perseverance." 
 
 Once in a great while Mr. Clymer called his wife by 
 her whole, obsolete Christian name ; perhaps because 
 she so carefully avoided calling him "Abel." 
 
 Estabel and Harry both looked round, turning toward 
 the speakers. Dr. North picked up Mrs. Clymer s ball
 
 278 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 and laid it on her lap, whence she immediately let it 
 roll again. 
 
 "But I thought when people failed, everything had 
 to go." 
 
 "Oh, not at all. A house may take fire, and yet 
 not burn down to the ground." 
 
 "When that happens the small boy is ill-used," re 
 marked Dr. North. "And perhaps some of the bigger 
 lookers-on. Human nature demands the utmost of an 
 event." His mouth wore its curve of amused irony. 
 
 "I m sure I don t know what you mean, Ulick, " 
 said his aunt-in-law. "I don t wish anybody misfor 
 tune, but I should think they would have to be poor." 
 
 "Mrs. Chilstone hasn t failed," explained Uncle 
 Abel. "That s well taken care of. Chilstone s a man 
 who always knows what he is about. A wife is a good 
 insurance policy. " 
 
 Estabel had laid down her cards, and now turned 
 square about. No one spoke immediately, and she ven 
 tured to ask a question. 
 
 " What does that mean, Uncle Clymer ? " 
 
 "It means that a wife is a man s preferred creditor. 
 She has the best right." 
 
 "What is a preferred creditor? " 
 
 "One who has security of being paid first." 
 
 " Whatever becomes of the rest, " supplemented Dr. 
 North quietly, reaching over to take up Estabel s dial- 
 counter, and presently proceeding to move its indexes 
 back and forth mechanically, to the entire derangement 
 of her score. 
 
 Estabel did not notice. "Is that right?" she pur 
 sued. "I thought wives were their husband s partners. 
 I should think the debts would be theirs, too." 
 
 Mr. Clymer lifted his head with a challenged air. 
 There was a very positive tone in his voice as he re 
 plied : 
 
 "Liabilities depend on partnership agreements.
 
 BfiZIQUE. 279 
 
 With all my worldly goods I thee endow is the man s 
 contract. His first duty is to his wife." 
 
 "But if his wife was endowed with what he owed " 
 
 "She isn t. He gives her what he has. What he 
 may owe afterward has nothing to do with it. It is 
 his business to see that it shall not have. A man is 
 bound to take care of his wife, " he repeated. 
 
 " Only I thought you said it was insurance, " persisted 
 Estabel in all simplicity. She never thought that her 
 uncle was justifying himself. She supposed it was Mr. 
 Chilstone, and a general principle. The general princi 
 ples of the world interested Estabel Charlock very 
 much. 
 
 "Isn t insurance a plan to get back something that 
 will make up a loss ? " 
 
 Dr. North laughed. He put down the bdzique coun 
 ter and glanced up. The little indexes on the two dials 
 showed a round reckoning of two thousand. Harry 
 Henslee turned them back to their places in the count, 
 which he remembered. 
 
 "You don t know anything about it. Stick to your 
 game, " Mr. Clymer said testily. He replied more to 
 Ulick North s look and smile than to the girl s words. 
 
 Estabel resumed her hand. 
 
 "I wouldn t be anybody s wife that would make an 
 insurance policy of me, " she remarked with an honest 
 serenity, spreading out the bits of pasteboard in her 
 fingers. "I declare a royal marriage, Harry;" and 
 laid down the pair. 
 
 " I should think you did, beforehand ! " shouted 
 Harry with great glee. "Only remember, you must 
 get your king of trumps first. You may have to wait 
 a good while for him." 
 
 "Well, I did wait. I had a common marriage in my 
 hand, too. But I had to break that up to take the trick." 
 
 "Oh, you jilt! Do you know half how funny you 
 are, Estabel? " And Harry s shout broke forth again.
 
 280 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Can t you play without such a noise?" demanded 
 Mr. Clymer, who had wheeled round in his chair toward 
 the fire, broken up a big lump of cannel coal with a vig 
 orous thump, and betaken himself again to the broad 
 sheet of his "Journal of Commerce." 
 
 "Anyway," soliloquized Mrs. Clymer with reassur 
 ance, "they can t look over everybody s heads any 
 longer." And her knitting needles began their easy 
 click again, as she settled herself back in her cushions 
 to think over the bit of news so briefly told and ex 
 plained, and paraphrase it to her full inward satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 Dr. North watched the be"zique players a few mo 
 ments, as a rapid count on Estabel s part went on, until 
 she made a triumphant final score with sequence of 
 trumps. 
 
 Then he and Harry went away together. They were 
 very good friends. 
 
 " The talk got rather ticklish to-night, " said the 
 younger fellow, buttoning up his overcoat closer as the 
 cold blast through Mount Street struck them. 
 
 Dr. North walked up the length of a block with 
 Harry before he turned across toward Clover Street. 
 
 "I d have liked to hear it out a little longer," the 
 latter went on. "Only Estabel would have gotten fur 
 ther into the hot water or put somebody else in. She 
 was either mighty deep or mighty simple." 
 
 "Both, I think," returned the doctor. "Simpleness 
 of a kind goes deep. " 
 
 "She was plucky, anyhow as usual." 
 
 Dr. North did not reply to that. He was thinking 
 that a young man might not speak just so of a girl he 
 was in love with. It further crossed his mind that the 
 little play of metaphor over the cards would not have 
 gone on between two who had any sensitive mutual con 
 sciousness. Notwithstanding that he felt himself as 
 decidedly outside as ever, more left aside than ever,
 
 BEZIQUE. 281 
 
 indeed, of late, these indications were not unwelcome 
 to him. As to the be zique, it had seemed to him that 
 Estabel had been very charmingly literal ; and in that 
 very literalness had, without smallest intention, dis 
 closed a larger truth of herself that might well be pro 
 phecy. He distinctly hoped it might be. 
 
 What did not occur to him with equal force was that 
 he, who had thought he distrusted the whole world, was 
 beginning to believe almost absolutely in this little 
 schoolgirl ; and that something which unbelief had 
 been hindering in his life was, with a new faith, stir 
 ring toward some fresh, if remote possibility. He 
 either did not suspect it in himself, or he turned will 
 fully from self-detection. If the discovery had closely 
 threatened him, he would have put it aside with that 
 theoretical substitution of motive by which he was wont 
 to refer to the love of mere analytical research any in 
 terest in individual human character. 
 
 "She is a schoolgirl," he would have said. "She is 
 not a woman, in the world. One wonders if she will 
 be that soon. Will the world creep upon her, as the 
 years must ? " 
 
 It seemed . to him as if there had been a long pause, 
 when Harry Henslee said again, or really only went on 
 to say, "It is because she means things. She s down 
 right honest, through and through. I ve known her 
 all my life." 
 
 With that they came to the corner. As they said 
 good-night, Dr. North, the undemonstrative, held out 
 his hand. Harry took it, and got a good, strong grip. 
 And then they went their ways. 
 
 To the little argument as to relations and events al 
 ready working in Ulick North s sub-consciousness, some 
 thing in his companion s last word had added a further 
 subtle touch of confirmation not assurance, not con 
 viction ; why should he care for either ? There was 
 time, of course, for anything to come of this frank inti-
 
 282 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 macy ; yet somehow it was comfortable to Dr. North 
 that it had not yet come, in young, hasty fashion. 
 
 Over his pipe that night he wondered if knowing a 
 person all one s life might give one, after all, the most 
 discriminative knowledge ; if, indeed, it might not 
 possibly be a mere childish apprehension of each other 
 that persons so knowing would carry on into their ma- 
 turer life ; if later friendships might not reach farther 
 down, strike deeper root. 
 
 Then he did, at last, rousing himself, begin to won 
 der at his own wonder. Of what interest was all this 
 to him ? Why did he care to understand what sort of 
 understanding Harry Henslee might have of Estabel 
 Charlock, the girl whom he had known all his life ? 
 Why did he care to guess what this girl would do, or be, 
 or come to, next, in the years that hurry a girl forward 
 so fast into a woman ? What would it ever be to him 
 whether the world got her, or she got loose from the 
 world ? 
 
 Still, in this introspection, he did not more than half 
 discover himself, even to the consciousness that it was 
 really his own case he was watching, on the careful, 
 passive, "expectant " system. He thought that he was 
 dismissing the matter. 
 
 He made the discovery that his pipe was finished, 
 shook the ashes out with a particular deliberation, and 
 went to bed.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 THE RELIGION OP BUSINESS. 
 
 MR. CLYMER had a real respect for his nephew. 
 Cranky as the latter s opinions often seemed to him to 
 be, he could not quite shake off the effect they had 
 upon him. Perhaps when they were not expressed, the 
 influence of their withholding was the stronger. He 
 knew very well that there could be very few things con 
 cerning which Ulick North had not opinions ; and he 
 felt that silence was sometimes the keenest criticism. 
 
 Mr. Clymer was very apt to try himself on with 
 Ulick. The result of this was very apt to be an in 
 creased complication in his peculiarly mixed regard for 
 the young man. Arguing with him was often like argu 
 ing with his own better self; and while a man respects 
 the best of himself and cannot be comfortable until he 
 wins it over, he may be impatient enough with it at 
 times to wish that he could order it out of his house. 
 There was therefore danger, when this better self was 
 represented objectively, that a crisis of such nature 
 might, to greater or less extent, arise. Mr. Clymer 
 did not wish to quarrel with his nephew, but it fre 
 quently happened that their relations of the moment 
 were slightly strained. 
 
 The only part that Dr. North had taken in the little 
 colloquy of the other evening except for his amused 
 allusion to the small boy s appetite for fire, and his 
 brief, significant commentary upon the definition of the 
 preferred creditor had been to listen and laugh. But 
 while his eyes had been brimful of fun at the encounter
 
 284 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 of shrewd worldly wisdom with young, honest, quick 
 witted ignorance, they had held a certain keen search- 
 ingness, as of a judge who watches from the bench a 
 cross-examination. Mr. Clymer wondered what his 
 rulings would have been. 
 
 So when Ulick found him alone a few evenings later, 
 the subject was revived. 
 
 "That matter of Chilstone and Marish turns out 
 pretty disastrously," Mr. Clymer remarked. "Liabili 
 ties very large, and scattered ; assets next to nothing, 
 practically. It means a good deal of trouble. When 
 sand and pebbles begin rolling down-hill, look out for 
 a landslide. If there is n t a considerable business 
 cave-in coming, I m happily mistaken." 
 
 "I hope it doesn t touch you, sir," said Dr. North 
 guardedly. 
 
 "Not directly. No. We don t hold any of Chil 
 stone and Marish s paper. I ve been shy of it for some 
 time. Steeples, my partner, has rather a weakness for 
 name sometimes W T est End name, that is. But I 
 don t recognize any West End in business quarters. So 
 we re pretty cautious, and quick, too, in shaky times. 
 Doesn t do to stand too long on a hummock when 
 you re crossing a bog. Jump at the right minute 
 that s the rule. Turns out the golden rule in our line 
 of march. Shaky times are good enough times, if you 
 know how to take em." 
 
 Mr. Clymer smiled at himself in astute content. 
 
 Dr. North sat gravely listening. 
 
 Some one else heard the talk, too, in fragments ; not 
 surreptitiously, for Mr. Clymer knew that Estabel had 
 taken her school books and retreated to the dining-room 
 when Dr. North came in, and that the doors were open 
 across the narrow passage. Besides, this kind of talk 
 went on so very commonly ; there was no reserve or 
 secret in it. It did not even begin to interest her at 
 once. She was deep in an algebraic equation.
 
 THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS. 285 
 
 u Business assets, as I said, next to nothing in the 
 case. Big failures in New York did the mischief. 
 Lots of waste paper." 
 
 "Seems to be a kind of waste paper affair all round," 
 said the doctor. But he would not enlarge, nor pre 
 cipitate discussion. 
 
 Mr. Clymer s smile broke into a laugh. "That 
 states it, exactly," he said. "And nobody much hurt 
 in the end, perhaps." 
 
 "Except, I suppose, a few practical people, who 
 don t do a paper business, but who have to come down 
 with the slide. Under it, I guess, when it settles." 
 
 It was here that Estabel began really to listen. Here 
 was something that concerned life directly, as her par 
 ticular example in algebra did not. 
 
 "Poor devils, yes. Unless they ve known enough 
 to hedge a bit. It s hard on them, but can t be 
 helped. The slide, as you say, has got to lodge some 
 where. " 
 
 "I didn t say it exactly so. But it s the result, 
 if not the necessity. It appears to be the religion of 
 business." Dr. North spoke composedly, but his eyes 
 flashed. Estabel knew they would. She wished she 
 could see his face. 
 
 "If you like to call it so, although I don t see the 
 connection. If you mean the inevitable law, why not ? " 
 
 "No why. It has always been the inevitable law in 
 the business of religion. And it s a poor rule that 
 won t work both ways." Dr. North s cynical tones 
 enunciated the statement most succinctly. 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " came with irate 
 quickness from Mr. Clymer. 
 
 "I mean what the churches have been teaching for 
 three hundred years the doctrine of human failure, 
 and of turning off the loss on some one else, and walk 
 ing away free." 
 
 This was attacking Mr. Abel Clymer on both flanks.
 
 286 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 He was a firm upholder of the church, and said his 
 prayers every Sunday at the Chapel of the Beatitudes ; 
 a Low Church compromise hetween the Puritan ortho 
 doxy in which he had been brought up and the ritualis 
 tic order of observance which Mrs. Clymer preferred, 
 perhaps as a convenient ready-made garment involving 
 less trouble of personal fitting. Immaculate in holy- 
 day appointment, from shaven chin to shining boots, 
 from tip to tip an unimpeachable Christian gentleman, 
 he filled his place in his broad-aisle pew as he did his 
 chair in his counting house on other days, with an im 
 portance and a dignity; and as duly transferred from 
 his vest pocket to the offertory plate a golden coin in 
 payment of tax to the revenue of the Kingdom, as he 
 passed his worldly gains to the right entry in his busi 
 ness ledgers, and with much the same motive in careful 
 calculation; to look out for himself in a shaky world, 
 and to cross the bog on safe hummocks. 
 
 He was as confident of his position and principle in 
 the one relation as in the other. Both w r ere sacred to 
 him ; fixed, and set apart, and not to be doubted or 
 profaned. The unexpected assault astounded him. 
 
 "If you scoff at Christ s salvation!" he broke out, 
 and could no further. 
 
 "I don t. Any more than I should scoff at you, if 
 you came forward now to some poor fellow under the 
 drift with help to right himself. I can understand the 
 gospel, so far ; but I cannot understand the thing that 
 has been made of it, any more than I can understand 
 the technical turns and squirms of debit and credit." 
 
 This brought it back. Mr. Clymer had no mind to 
 pursue a theological disputation ; he was not in armor 
 nor in mood for it. It was a week-day with him, and 
 this was week-day talk. But the acrimony of a reli 
 gious resentment intensified his practical dogmatism, 
 and he was sore with personal offense. He had not set 
 out for all this, but he was in for it now. He might
 
 THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS. 287 
 
 as well understand things, once for all, with Ulick 
 North. 
 
 "What technical squirms? " he demanded. "A man 
 in honorable business does n t like insinuations of 
 squirms." 
 
 "It isn t a pretty word; but you spoke of hedg 
 ing. " 
 
 "Looking out both ways; yes. That s fair in all 
 tactics. One must provide for retreat, as well as for 
 advance. I suppose you mean something like what was 
 spoken of the other night. I don t imagine you are as 
 uncomprehending as that child." 
 
 That child was leaning forward now, and listening 
 with all her might not to hear of herself ; that passed 
 her as of no concern; but to hear what Ulick North 
 would say of truth and falsehood in these things of 
 which she was so uncomprehending. 
 
 "I don t see any way of getting round a debt but 
 by paying it, if that is uncomprehending, " she heard 
 Dr. North reply. 
 
 "Well, that s gospel. That s Calvinism. And 
 you don t like Calvinism." 
 
 "It strikes me that s another side of the subject, 
 and that there may be a question between gospel and 
 Calvinism. But allowing that theory, it only clinches 
 the argument. Somebody must pay. A debt is a debt, 
 and must either be discharged, or absolutely forgiven 
 by the party holding claim." 
 
 "Well. Which thing are you talking about? " 
 
 "Both, so far. My gospel if I were sure of it 
 would be absolute forgiveness. In spiritual matters I 
 should take the word to mean its whole meaning 
 something more than flat canceling ; a giving-for the 
 payment. A free bestowal of the wherewithal to re 
 deem the debt. But I am no polemic. I think a 
 worldly obligation an honest one holds, clear 
 through. A man s money can t be shuffled out of
 
 288 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 sight, or transferred, and really cease to be liable. 
 The transfer would be only a shifting of responsibility." 
 
 "Then I couldn t give away anything as I went 
 along without involving the person receiving it to that 
 extent, if I failed ever after to take up a business note. 
 Trash ! " 
 
 "You can make trash out of anything. There is no 
 thing true that cannot be pushed to a form of absurdity. 
 The whole thing lies in a clear, upright consciousness. 
 I would n t expect a woman whom I could honor 
 that s in the marriage contract, too, or ought to be 
 on both sides to keep possession of anything that I 
 should slip into her pocket because I wasn t sure it 
 might rightfully belong in mine." 
 
 "I don t see where you would stop, with your high 
 morals." Mr. Clymer s voice rose, irritatedly, a tone 
 or two in spite of an habitual control. "A debt is a 
 duty, and a duty is a due. Perhaps you would have 
 a wife or a widow or an inheritor hunt up all 
 they might think a man ought to have done with his 
 money, and pay it out for him in settlement of his 
 estate, before accepting their own rights a dower, or 
 a legacy, or a residue at law ? " 
 
 Mr. Clymer thought he had shown an absurdity yet 
 more far reaching and conclusive, to which such notions 
 as Ulick North s might logically lead. Perhaps^ he 
 thought he was bringing the argument home, in some 
 remote, suggested contingency, to the man. 
 
 "One wouldn t like to have the burden laid upon 
 him of proof-reading the whole record of a man s life," 
 Ulick replied, in a tone indicative of the sort of smile 
 that might accompany a courteously ambiguous answer, 
 as of one who would turn off a troublesome subject as 
 little offensively as possible. There was also a move 
 ment as if he rose to go. 
 
 Mr. Clymer got up too. Estabel heard his heavy 
 chair pushed back. But he would not let Ulick off
 
 THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS. 289 
 
 without another thrust. It seemed as if he meant to 
 drive him to the wall. 
 
 "Perhaps you wouldn t be in favor of his having any 
 property to leave," he said sardonically. 
 
 "Perhaps," Ulick returned quietly, "there wouldn t 
 be so much property amassed, or so many consciences 
 involved, or so many contrasts in human condition, if 
 every man held a duty as a debt, from day to day, and 
 from dollar to dollar." 
 
 "I m glad to know your opinions," Mr. Clymer an 
 swered, with a strongly constrained utterance which 
 Estabel knew to be her uncle s when he was very angry. 
 "They are not mine. They are the notions of a set of 
 communist fanatics. But I shall not quarrel with you. 
 I don t quarrel. I modify my estimates, however 
 and consequently, sometimes, my course of action. 
 Good-night." 
 
 And he sat down again, wheeling about evidently, 
 from the sound of creaking casters, so as to turn his 
 back upon the door through which Dr. North was de 
 parting. 
 
 "Perhaps I did wrong," Estabel was saying to her 
 self. "But I couldn t help it, very well. And 
 oh ! was n t he brave ? " 
 
 She might have slipped away then, through the farther 
 door and passage, and left no trace of her having been 
 within hearing. But with a bravery of her own she sat 
 still. What she had done she would not conceal. 
 
 The algebraic equation, however, would not work 
 itself through her brain. And presently she heard her 
 uncle go off to his room, up the front staircase, speak 
 ing to Archibald as he went, and ordering him, curtly, 
 to chain-bolt the door and put out the lights. He had 
 forgotten to come into the dining-room for his usual 
 glass of water. 
 
 A bell rang from above a minute after, and Archi 
 bald appeared to fetch it.
 
 290 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Good-night, Archibald, " the girl said, meeting him 
 in the doorway with a pile of books upon her arm. 
 There was such a bright, sweet, happy ring in her voice 
 that the man s "Good-night, miss," took a responsive 
 cheeriness, and he added to himself, as he filled a little 
 pitcher from the great ice-urn, " T ain t her, then. 
 She ain t in it. So fur, so good; but the old man s 
 riled at something, no mistake." 
 
 When Archibald was on duty he was very often on 
 phraseological stilts; in his private cogitations he 
 dropped to an easy, natural level. One may be a very 
 fair French or German or Latin scholar, and yet not 
 have arrived at thinking in French, German, or Latin. 
 
 When Ulick North returned to his office after his 
 morning round next day, he found upon his table a 
 square blue envelope. Within was a note of telegraphic 
 brevity, and a bank check. The note said : 
 
 "Please find enclosed check for one hundred dollars, 
 for professional services, and return receipt for the 
 same. Yours truly, ABEL CLYMEB." 
 
 This was dismissal, and, as Ulick North felt it, in 
 sult. Professionally, he had visited his uncle a dozen 
 times or more during his recent disability. 
 
 Within the hour an answer reached Mr. Clymer s 
 office. 
 
 "Please find enclosed my bill for medical attendance, 
 with check returned, as. drawn under evident mistake. 
 Yours truly, ULICK NORTH." 
 
 The bill was for fifteen visits, thirty dollars. 
 
 Ulick had taken his new attitude in the circum 
 stances as positively and unhesitatingly as Mr. Clymer 
 had attempted to take his.
 
 THE RELIGION OF BUSINESS. 291 
 
 The specific charge was paid with a fresh check, the 
 receipted bill sent back in due order, each with instant 
 promptness, and no further word was exchanged. The 
 formality was as final as the demanding and receiving 
 of passports by an ambassador of state. 
 
 Heretofore there had been no bill rendering, no re 
 ceipts ; the services had been given uncalculatingly, the 
 occasional money acknowledgment offered and received 
 with friendly generosity and frankness, as from kinsman 
 to kinsman, each understanding and appreciating a good 
 will apart from pay. This sudden assumption of busi 
 ness relations meant abandonment, at least for the time, 
 of any other. 
 
 Ulick North felt the Mount Street door closed against 
 him, and the next time Mr. Clymer wanted advice he 
 sent for Dr. Keaton. 
 
 Nevertheless, in the midst of his resentment, he felt 
 an involuntary added respect for the young man, with 
 whose pride if not his principles he could sympathize. 
 The sting was that this increase of estimation had to be 
 precisely the deduction from his own self-respect.
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 SEEING THROUGH. 
 
 IT is curiously remarkable how minor events swell 
 the current of reason and determination when a strong 
 wish first impels it. Every little wind blows the same 
 way. There is an easy trend, by repeated slight in 
 clines in the lay of the land, toward the object. All 
 streams run to the sea, as all roads lead toward Rome. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer wanted to break up her establishment 
 in Mount Street and go again to Europe. Her estab 
 lishment began to break up of its own accord. 
 
 First, Sara Sullivant was sent for from Mullichunk, 
 in a remote district of Maine. An aunt had lately 
 died there, leaving a paralytic husband. Sara was 
 wanted to come and take the charge that nobody else 
 seemed free to take. 
 
 "I expected it. It s never long between," she said. 
 
 "Between what? " asked her mistress. 
 
 "Between the seeings through." 
 
 "I don t understand." 
 
 "There s always somebody to be watched off. I ve 
 had it to do most of the time ever since I was grown 
 up. First, it was mother. She was sick four years. 
 And then father hurt his hip, and he gave out. I 
 tended on him, and done everything else, till he died. 
 After that I went into the mills a spell. But twa n t 
 a great while before iny cousin, that married the man 
 that wanted me once, was left, and went weak in her 
 mind weaker, I should say and sent for me ; so I 
 had to go there, and never got away till after she died,
 
 SEEING THROUGH. 293 
 
 poor thing! And that led up, finally, to my bein 
 wanted for her mother. They all depended on me to 
 see em through. There never seemed to be anybody 
 else. Other folks well, they were pinned down, 
 some oneway and some another; and nobody s stakes 
 could be pulled up but mine. Now, I ve got to go to 
 Mullichunk." 
 
 "But certainly you ve done your part. Why don t 
 you say so ? " 
 
 "No use to hang back. It s some folks part to do 
 the whole of some things. T is as tis, and it can t 
 be no tiser, as Uncle Zim used to say himself, when 
 he was layin down the law." 
 
 "It mayn t be long," suggested Mrs. Clymer re 
 motely. 
 
 "That s what they all say to encourage me. Of 
 course, they can t any of em last forever. But one 
 day does n t last forever, an yet three hundred and 
 sixty-five days, one after another, last a year. And 
 then the year begins right over again." 
 
 "People can t," said Estabel a little obtusely. 
 
 "No. Not the same ones. But there s always 
 somebody. And I m passed round. Anybody s liable 
 to be, I guess, that once gets started." 
 
 So with cheerful energy that belied her blunt protest, 
 Sara Sullivant began to pack her trunk. Estabel told 
 her privately that she believed it suited her best to do 
 what nobody else would do, and that she was really not 
 a bit sorry to go. 
 
 "You re pretty sharp, but you re mistaken right 
 exactly there, " the good woman replied, with her head 
 under the trunk-lid, holding it up. "It s the goin I 
 am sorry for." 
 
 She went on prodding and punching her close be 
 stowals, and did not add any word for a minute or two. 
 If a tear came, she dropped it there and then, and 
 packed it in among her stockings. But she lifted her
 
 294 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 head bravely when she did emerge, and said, "I sha n t 
 be sorry for the gittin there. I m needed, an that s 
 enough. And I like both hands full. Too, I 11 have 
 em. For if Uncle Zimri s anything, he s pernickity." 
 . Estabel fell back upon the stereotyped consolation. 
 
 "It will have to come to an end, and then, maybe 
 you 11 but where shall ive all be? " 
 
 "That s it," said Sara. "That s always it. Things 
 go on, and go off, and you never can catch hold where 
 you let go. An snappin turtles live a thousand years, 
 they say." 
 
 Mr. Clymer did not enter into his wife s dismay at 
 losing Sara. "There are plenty of women to be had," 
 he said. 
 
 "That s what a man thinks. I suppose," retorted 
 Mrs. Clymer, "whether it s a housemaid or a wife." 
 Mr. Clymer laughed. 
 
 But his turn came when Archibald announced to him 
 that he had made up his mind to get married, and set up 
 in a little business, with a wife to help him who knew 
 the ropes. "A stylish little restyouraunt, " he said. 
 
 Mr. Clymer laughed. "Pooh, pooh! Better think 
 twice. Might rest your aunt, but won t rest you, nor 
 your wife. Better off where you are, and she wherever 
 she is." 
 
 "That ain t the way it looks to us. We have 
 thought twice once apiece and we re both agreed. 
 But we won t be in a hurry not unreasonably. The 
 spring 11 do. I ve had a good place here, and I won t 
 leave you in any lurch. That s why I spoke now." 
 
 "Very well. We 11 let it rest, then. You may 
 think better of it, after all," he repeated. 
 
 "Guess not, sir," was the reply. "Couldn t think 
 better of it than I do now no way. " 
 
 After that, Mr. Clymer began to admit to himself 
 that things were unsettling, and that new arrangements 
 might come about.
 
 SEEING THROUGH. 295 
 
 Sara Sullivant was persuaded to wait for another 
 letter and consider whether she also might not stay till 
 spring. 
 
 "He s got a sister, Uncle Zimri has," she admitted; 
 "and she ain t got any children. She s doin for him 
 now it s she that s sendin after me an if I d 
 broke my neck, or got married myself, she d have had 
 to keep on doin . Good mind to pretend I have." 
 
 "Which?" Estabel asked gleefully, delighted at the 
 possible reprieve. 
 
 "Well, either both. Don t much signify, I 
 guess." 
 
 So the partly packed trunk was shut up, and Sara 
 stayed on, more for the persuasive pleasure in Estabel s 
 eyes than for her mistress s remonstrance or proffer of 
 increased wages. 
 
 "It ll be full as satisfactory to see you through, 
 first, " she said to Estabel upstairs. 
 
 "Oh, Sara!" 
 
 "Well, you know what I mean. And come to think, 
 it is seein through, every time you end up anything. 
 Every piece of livin is a life; an maybe the ain t so 
 much differ nee in the endin s as we re apt to conject."
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 
 
 WEST GARDENS was built up. 
 
 On the time contracts, labor had been pushed. Or 
 ganization and executive management had been admi 
 rable. Not an hour had been lost. 
 
 The last workman had gone off with his kit of tools. 
 The last dray had carted from the premises ladders, 
 scaffoldings, remnants, rubbish. The sanded sidewalks, 
 broad and even, swept around the ample curve. Even 
 gardeners had done their work, and behind the gilt- 
 tipped iron rails that shielded the little grassplots in 
 the intervals between the outside flights of brownstone 
 steps, the sods were green, and in narrow beds along the 
 basements, far enough back to be safe from marauding 
 reach, bulbs of tulip and of crocus were sending up green 
 blades, low blooming flowers, and budding stems. Along 
 the stonework, and clasping with venturing rootlets the 
 bricked walls, were already visible the beginnings of 
 beautiful vine tapestry, the first stitches, as it were, of an 
 embroidery that should by and by cover the fronts with 
 draperies of alternating verdure and resplendent color. 
 
 A number of the dwellings were already occupied, 
 and the graceful balconies of iron tracery, touched and 
 tipped with gilding like the rails below, were being 
 filled with potted plants in flower. West Gardens 
 people were beginning on the determination to live up 
 to the name of their demesne. It was springtime in 
 the city, and things were fresh, and dwellings old and 
 new looked open, bright, and garnished.
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 297 
 
 Down in Shawme Street little gardens, running to 
 the river, were taking on their greenness, and their lilac 
 bushes and peony clumps were in the bud, and the lilies 
 of the valley, in sheltered southward nooks, were un 
 folding some of their white bells. The river shone in 
 the sun, the air blew sweet from the westward across 
 the broad, calm water, and in at the house windows 
 gladly flung awide. But in one house our one house 
 there was trouble. 
 
 David Hawtree lay ill and prostrate, broken down 
 with the strain and tension of his winter s overwork 
 and his pressing anxieties. Only himself knew all 
 about it, but the grandmother and the young daughter 
 knew very well that he had "done too much," and that 
 the hard undertaking entered upon bravely and hope 
 fully a year ago had been at best but an unpaying labor, 
 and so had " taken out of him " proportionally to what 
 it had failed to give. They had seen how in all these 
 last months strength had been lessening, and a cloud of 
 perplexity and discouragement had been settling down 
 upon countenance and manner, showing itself in the 
 wan look of mornings, that betrayed sleepless nights, 
 and in brief unenjoyed partaking of daily meals. At 
 last, with some slight provoking incidental cause, posi 
 tive disease had fastened its grasp upon him and laid 
 him low. For this is what it does the manifest 
 thing that we call an attack of illness : it seizes upon 
 that which is made ready for it by the undermining of 
 natural power and healthy resistance, and by its cruel 
 hold drags deathward. In later days we have called it 
 " S r ip " n t realizing our own instinctive discrimination, 
 nor how literal and explicit the word is. 
 
 The three houses for which David Hawtree had taken 
 the carpentry contracts were really built out of his life. 
 Early and late, in positive labor and unceasing responsi 
 ble watchfulness, the work had taxed him to the ut 
 most. Added to this, courage and incentive had given
 
 298 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 place, first to doubt, and then to a distastrous certainty 
 that the agreement in which he was bound was proving 
 for him a losing one. Brace and Buckle had made 
 theirs, which included all lesser bargains, at the lowest 
 possible calculation. They knew it was a risk ; but 
 even if they only came out of this "by the skin of their 
 teeth, " it would open the way, as was already indicated, 
 to their opportunity in other more lucrative engage 
 ments in which they could insist upon better conditions. 
 Or, if very worst came, there was a way out for them. 
 Nobody could blame them for not accomplishing impos 
 sibilities ; there were a hundred circumstances always to 
 adduce : times, prices, delays and accidents of weather, 
 a bad business and atmospheric season, through all of 
 which hindrance they had redeemed their original 
 pledges ; the evidence of which, as of probity and abil 
 ity, and also for justification in closer future reckon 
 ings, would stand. Meanwhile, they took the skin off 
 smaller men s teeth, and were leaving consequences to 
 drop wherever they might finally alight. 
 
 Mr. Hawtree, and others like him, had found it diffi 
 cult to get money in advance to pay off journeymen. 
 Brace and Buckle "did not get their money in ad 
 vance," they said. "It was n t a kind of thing to go 
 into without capital." "We 11 give you our notes for 
 six months each, on interest," they told him, and with 
 that he had to be satisfied. But upon the second six- 
 months notes he had failed to raise ready money; he 
 could not get a sufficiently strong indorser ; the business 
 season was really a shaky one ; there were preliminary 
 thrills of earthquake ; the brokers would not discount 
 reasonably. Clymer and Steeples themselves virtually 
 refused. Hawtree had to hold the paper in the hope 
 of ultimate payment. 
 
 So he sold out snug investments, that neither work 
 men nor work might suffer ; when that was not enough, 
 he mortgaged his house, and another that he had built
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 299 
 
 and leased ; and at last, seeing what might come to be 
 the final result, and feeling in himself the threatening 
 of what did come in bodily condition, he made over his 
 life insurance policy to the benefit of his friend, R. 
 Thistlestoke, whose lumber, on his credit, had gone into 
 the elegant, thorough-built structures of the new resi 
 dential centre. 
 
 And now he lay, waiting the end. 
 
 "Poor little Lilian! Poor little Lilian!" he would 
 say in low breaths of half- wandering speech. "I ve 
 done so badly for my little girl. But I ve tried 
 I ve tried to do my best. And I m going to die 
 an honest man. God knows ; I ve got to leave it with 
 Him now. He takes up the things we have to drop." 
 
 And then, presently, he would turn his head feebly, 
 and, clinging still to life and to what might possibly re 
 vive it, would whisper, "Tonic tonic! " and open his 
 lips for the teaspoonful that would be brought. 
 
 Estabel had established the habit of going to see 
 Lilian and the dear Gladmother on Sunday afternoons. 
 Sunday drew her especially ; for the day was in tuna 
 with the visit. The Gladmother s room was like a 
 church; she always got there what Sunday ought to 
 bring. It made up, perhaps, for some lack elsewhere. 
 Also, it was almost her only free time from lessons and 
 other requirements ; Aunt Vera took her weekly, quiet 
 nap ; other days she had to go out, or to be ready 
 dressed at home for company; Sunday she had stillness, 
 freedom, and wrapper comfort. Mr. Clymer was al 
 ways busy in his little private room ; some little sheep 
 were invariably in the pit on the Sabbath day, conven 
 iently and comfortably impounded there for the leisurely 
 rescue. 
 
 Perhaps this custom of Estabel s had not taken inva 
 riable form until after the break in Dr. North s visits, 
 which had often been in the interval between afternoon
 
 300 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 service and early tea, to which he was apt to stay. 
 Estabel missed these weekly episodes and their pleasant 
 anticipation. 
 
 It was on a Sunday afternoon, therefore, that Lilian, 
 having watched her coming, met her noiselessly at the 
 garden door. "I cannot ask you in, dear," she said. 
 "I just came down to kiss you. Father is very ill." 
 
 "Oh, Lil! I won t keep you a minute. But what 
 is it ? " 
 
 "It began with influenza. Almost everybody has had 
 that. We did n t think of being anxious about it. But 
 now it is pneumonia, and the doctor is afraid typhoid." 
 
 "Oh, Lil!" Estabel said again, and put her arms 
 around the girl with a strong clasp, as if she would hold 
 her away from her trouble. 
 
 "I must come again and ask. But not to hinder 
 you, or anybody. Could n t you make some sign for 
 me? Then I could just come, and look, and go away." 
 
 The two girls agreed that if Lilian could not come 
 down, she would put a white handkerchief in the west 
 front window. If her father continued about the same, 
 it should be in the middle of the sash ; should he be 
 better, it should hang, more or less, according to the 
 circumstance, to the inside right. Or if worse, it 
 should be moved in like manner to the left. 
 
 "And I shall tuck a bit of a note under the door 
 sometimes," said Estabel. "Only you are not to try 
 to answer it." 
 
 It was well that they had arranged the little telegra 
 phy, for when Aunt Vera was told of the illness she 
 made Estabel change all her clothing and take a bath; 
 had the outer garments hung out upon the line, and 
 peremptorily forbade the girl to go to the house again. 
 It was only after a promise that she would approach no 
 nearer than the corner from which she could perceive 
 the signal, that the sentence was commuted to allow so 
 much as that.
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 301 
 
 " All those things are horribly contagious, " declared 
 Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 "Being sorry is contagious, too," said Estabel. 
 "And all those things are everywhere. I might walk 
 another way and get something worse. But of course 
 I shall do as you tell me." 
 
 About the bit of a note, now especially necessary to 
 her satisfaction, she quickly devised a way to compass 
 that. Street delivery of mail was not yet in Top- 
 thorpe. She wrote a tender little message to Lilian, 
 explaining all. "But I can t be kept away," she 
 added. "The Gladmother has shown us the way round. 
 In the inside of everything I shall be close to you. 
 For you know the things that happen to you are as if 
 they happened to me. I shall be thinking to you 
 not just of you. all the time." 
 
 She put the note into another envelope, addressed to 
 Dr. North, with a line asking him to take the inclosure 
 to Lilian, and sent Archibald over with it to the doc 
 tor s office. 
 
 Ulick North sat looking at the girlish but firm chiro- 
 graphy longer than needed to read the words. It was the 
 first communication he had received from Mount Street 
 since what he had regarded as his expulsion. He won 
 dered just what inference he might draw now from this. 
 
 Had Estabel not missed him? Did she know or did 
 she not know? Did this say to him, "I am where I 
 always was. I understand " ? Or did it mean, "I am 
 aware of nothing; I have been concerned about no 
 thing " ? The simplicity, the directness, were them 
 selves a puzzle. Curiously, it is so, with persons who 
 themselves are most unflinchingly direct. Perhaps be 
 cause the smallest word or act, with them, is never 
 empty of a meaning. 
 
 Yet why should this girl of seventeen have a mean 
 ing, to be significantly direct or indirect about ? And 
 why should he be looking for such a meaning?
 
 302 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 " Life is full of symptoms, to a doctor, " he said to 
 himself derisively. He put the note for Lilian in his 
 waistcoat pocket. The other he restored to its envelope 
 and dropped into a side drawer of his open office desk. 
 He had a way of keeping notes and letters for a while. 
 There were often those to which he might need to make 
 some reference. Perhaps he disposed of this mechani 
 cally, or his wastebasket may have been just beyond his 
 reach. 
 
 He took his hat, and walked down Clover Street to 
 see his patient. 
 
 Day after day Estabel went down in the late after 
 noon to that Clover Street corner where it crossed 
 Shawme, from which, diagonally, there was a view of 
 the Hawtrees windows. 
 
 Day after day the white handkerchief hung from the 
 middle fastening. "No better," that meant. But it 
 meant, certainly also, "no worse." Or perhaps Lilian 
 shrank from confessing that it was by any different 
 inference equivalent to "not as well." 
 
 "Oh, I know she will hate to move it, the least bit, 
 until she can move it right, " Estabel would say to her 
 self as she turned sadly away. 
 
 But by and by it did move. Just a little aside, to 
 the left. The next day, farther. There it stayed, be 
 tween the two side panes of the old-fashioned glazing, 
 for three days. Then it crept a little farther yet. Its 
 white folds filled the last pane. The last was drawing 
 near. 
 
 And still Estabel could not go to them ; could do 
 nothing; and there was no word to say. She only 
 knew that Lilian and the Gladmother would know ; 
 would feel her thought. Inside knowing, all of 
 them, that inside way they were face to face. Better, 
 they were heart to heart. Written word would even 
 seem to displace this. 
 
 She never happened to see Dr. North. He was there
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 303 
 
 at morning, noon, and night, earlier and later, but not at 
 Estabel s particular hour. Once or twice she had the 
 impulse to go herself to Dr. North s office, and learn 
 all. But something withheld her. It would not be 
 quite open with Aunt Vera. She felt sure that Uncle 
 Clymer would not like it. And something else that 
 she did not try to define, since she had both these rea 
 sons already, made it seem impossible to her. "Be 
 sides," she comforted herself somewhat lamely with 
 concluding, "doctors never do tell anything." 
 
 It was on a Saturday afternoon, as the light softened 
 in the shaded streets and shone level across the river, 
 that she walked with look bent downward, for fear of 
 what she might see too soon, along the familiar uneven 
 old brick sideway where the little pools left by the brief 
 shower of an hour before lay glistening, and stopped, 
 still delaying the glance she dreaded, at the crossing. 
 
 She heard the closing of a door, and lifted her head 
 involuntarily. At the same moment a carriage came 
 down Clover Street, and turned the corner at which she 
 stood, interposing between her and that which her eyes 
 sought. But they waited, fixed; her line of sight was 
 broken only as a ray of light may be. It fell straight 
 upon its point when the way was open, and upon no 
 thing else. 
 
 The white signal was no longer there. It had fin 
 ished its slow transit, and had passed aside. Its story 
 was all told. 
 
 In its place, there stood upon the window ledge a 
 tall, clear vase, from which long plumes of ferns lifted 
 themselves delicately, swept right and left, like fair, 
 green wings, across the panes, and then bowed tenderly 
 downward, dropping oiit of sight. 
 
 They spoke the parable of the invisible, of which 
 their fronds and seeding are mysterious type. They 
 declared also the new, strong, beautiful life which 
 loosens itself upward out of the heavy, hiding mould,
 
 304 SQUAKE PEGS. 
 
 and from the deep roots of continual being unfolds into 
 an upper joy and an endless freedom, from whose 
 blessed franchise it finds way to bend and touch again, 
 with dear, remembering grace, the earth-spot that it 
 grew from. 
 
 Estabel knew every syllable of that sweet sign 
 speech. The lovely meanings had been given her long 
 ago. She stood still, gazing with wide eyes, from which 
 unheeded tears fell gently, upon the type show of a 
 wonderful revelation, not of death, but of a rising from 
 death. She hardly knew whether it were the pain of 
 a sorrow that appealed to her and which she felt, or 
 that of an exalted joy. 
 
 Her hands, which she had clasped together in sudden 
 stress of emotion, had fallen before her, still joined ; 
 her whole aspect was of a self-forgetting in a sublimity 
 that announced itself that can only announce itself 
 alongside a sentence or a prophecy that must mean also 
 suffering. She was as human nature at its highest 
 and deepest in the presence of birth or the presence 
 of that which is both death and birth is always ; in 
 the attitude of Mary, accepting the word of the angel. 
 
 It was only for a moment, though the moment held 
 so much of life. 
 
 She knew, with secondary, indifferent perception, 
 that some person was approaching from just beyond the 
 narrow crossing beside which she stood. She paid no 
 heed, except to move toward the curbstone, that the 
 passer-by might take the inner way. Intent upon the 
 reading of that great, grave message through its gentle 
 symbolism, she was aware of nothing else of her sur 
 rounding. The whole great city about her was as a 
 blank, a silence. 
 
 Dr. North came close beside her, and spoke her 
 name, holding out his hand. 
 
 Without surprise, without other movement, she lifted 
 both hers, locked as they were, and laid them upon his.
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 305 
 
 Her eyes slowly turned, and met the gentleness of his 
 look upon her. 
 
 " Lilian ? " The name, with its question, came 
 softly, as if of itself, from between her parted but 
 unmoving lips. 
 
 "She is asleep. Everything is done, and she is 
 obeying me. He died at noon to-day. She asked me 
 to let you know, and to tell you that by and by 
 when it is right, she said, and you can come she 
 will be glad of you. I had written the message on my 
 card, to leave in Mount Street. Shall I walk up with 
 you, now? We had better not stand here." 
 
 He offered her his arm. "Thank you; I don t need 
 that, " she said ; and turned around with him, retracing 
 by his side the way through Shawine Street. 
 
 Going up the steep pitch of Mount Street, she stopped 
 suddenly. He held out his arm again, and looked in her 
 face with a quick scrutiny. She answered it as quickly. 
 
 "I am all right," she said. "But I must ask you 
 something. Why did he have to die ? " 
 
 She put the question as if she really thought it could 
 be answered. 
 
 " Because it has to come to us all, " the doctor re 
 plied. "When one has lived all one can longer or 
 shorter life must go. " 
 
 "Why couldn t you help him? " 
 
 "The help was all the other way. On this side we 
 can only help what is tending striving toward us ; 
 coming back. When it begins to go we are powerless." 
 
 " When what begins to go ? " 
 
 "I said. What we call life." 
 
 " It only began, " said Estabel, repeating what she 
 had first been told, "with a common influenza. Why 
 couldn t you stop that there then?" She de 
 manded it almost imperatively. So we do demand of 
 the moment, the chance that we think has been in the 
 moment, that is passed.
 
 306 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "It began," said Dr. North, stirred to sudden un 
 sparing utterance, "with those infernal contracts; 
 with Brace and Buckle, who failed a month ago. 
 That was their way out of it. They are alive as 
 they count living and he is dead. It was those 
 things killed him the unjust bargainings, by which 
 all that was built." 
 
 He lifted his left hand and swept it toward West 
 Gardens. The plate glass in the great clear windows 
 of the tall bowed fronts on the upper side caught the 
 sunset lights, and were gorgeous with their blazing re 
 flections of the western sky. 
 
 From the street up to the dormer windows, every 
 casement showed rich, delicate, or simply dainty inner 
 draperies, of costly silk in luminous colors, of frosty- 
 patterned lace, of pretty, stainless muslin quaintly 
 folded back. Innocently splendid, like the clouds of 
 heaven. Sweet with orderly comfort, from base to 
 roof. Why not ? 
 
 Estabel looked, and clenched her teeth. 
 
 Down in Shawme Street there had been the sorrow 
 signal. Tender hands had placed it there, a reverent, 
 loving token of a life passed on. Hopeful, acquiescent, 
 even with a holy triumph in it, but a thing made mani 
 fest in tears, against deep loss. 
 
 The way of life is yet, to the earth vision inflexibly, 
 the way of death. Suddenly that hard, sad side not 
 the beautiful and heavenly one was all that Estabel 
 could see. Things did not happen rightly, as if of 
 God s full intent. The wrong of the world and the 
 death in the world these crashed together and re 
 solved themselves into the terrible unity they held from 
 the day of the sentence in Eden to the Easter Day of 
 a new Evangel as they will crash together still, till 
 the world learns and lives in all the power of the Divine 
 Resurrection and the Endless Life. 
 
 Ulick North had not meant to say it. Neither had
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 307 
 
 Estabel, until the instant, meant to ask him what she 
 did. 
 
 "It was cruel of me to tell you that," he said. 
 
 "It is the truth of it that is cruel," she answered 
 him. "Cruel! Cruel!" 
 
 She repeated the words, standing where she had 
 paused, stamping her foot unconsciously. And then a 
 kind of fury of pain, of accusal, of remorse for others, 
 seized her, and she started forward, almost rushing 
 away from her companion. 
 
 A carriage came down the hill, and drew up before 
 the Clymers door. 
 
 "It is Aunt Vera. Good-by." The words were 
 shot back at him over her shoulder as she hurried on. 
 
 She sprang up the steps, and rang the bell violently 
 while the carriage door was being opened, and Aunt 
 Vera, with her t back turned, was gathering up shawl 
 and cardcase and little shopping bundles. 
 
 Dr. North would not have avoided the encounter if 
 Estabel had allowed him to continue his escort natu 
 rally ; he was not at all afraid of meeting Mrs. Clymer. 
 As it was, he hesitated for an instant, from habitual 
 impulse of courtesy, whether to advance and assist the 
 alighting lady; but in that case it would have been 
 awkward for her not to invite him in, and as Archibald 
 quickly appeared, he yielded to a finer instinct and 
 crossed the street. 
 
 Estabel, heeding only her own escape, ran into the 
 house, and straight upstairs, like a wild, driven crea 
 ture. 
 
 Mr. Clymer had ctfme out from his study upon the 
 upper landing, when the carriage had stopped; and the 
 bell so madly pealed. He had taken a few steps down 
 ward when Estabel, blindly unperceiving, rushed toward 
 him from the foot. 
 
 "What on earth is the matter? " she suddenly heard 
 him call; and midway up she stopped short.
 
 308 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 At this moment Mrs. Clymer set foot on the lowest 
 stair. 
 
 Estabel turned from one to the other, trapped. 
 
 There were tears upon her cheeks, and her cheeks 
 were burning. 
 
 "Oh, don t speak to me! " she cried out, and put her 
 hands before her eyes. 
 
 Archibald was in the hall below. The three upon 
 the stairs stood blocking each other s way. 
 
 "What does it all mean?" asked Mrs. Clymer, in 
 amazed annoyance. 
 
 Her husband turned back to clear the passage, and to 
 regain the privacy of his own room. 
 
 Estabel would have gone by, and ascended the fur 
 ther flight to hers; but Mr. Clymer summoned her 
 peremptorily. 
 
 "Come in here," he commanded. "Vera, stop a 
 moment. We will have this explained." Since there 
 was evidently no bodily catastrophe, he resented the 
 commotion. 
 
 "Is this the way to enter the house? " he interrogated 
 Estabel. And then he closed the door behind Aunt Vera. 
 
 Again Estabel, at bay, looked from one to the other 
 in a strange, accusatory, restrained distress. Her eyes 
 flamed with the heat that had dried up tears. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer had a surmise of something of the truth. 
 
 " Something has happened in Shawme Street, " she 
 said, deprecatingly, to her husband. "Is that it, Es 
 tabel ? But why should you behave like this ? " 
 
 Then Estabel spoke in a strained, unnatural tone. 
 
 "Lilian s father is dead." 
 
 "Well? " responded Mr. Clymer, as if he would have 
 said, "What then, to you, or certainly to us, that 
 there should be all this demonstration ? " He was not 
 cruel-hearted ; but the event had happened in Shawme 
 Street. There was no reason that 84 Mount Street 
 should be invaded with a shock.
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 309 
 
 Then Estabel forgot everything but the thing that 
 urged her with its wrong ; that had driven out of her 
 all peaceful thought of death, and made this death an 
 outrage and a crime. 
 
 " Well ! " She repeated the syllable with all the 
 emphasis of her pain and scornful indignation. "Do 
 you think it is well, Uncle Clymer, that he should be 
 dead, and that you and the rest of those rich men 
 should have all those splendid houses that he helped to 
 build, when the wicked contracts that he had to make 
 for them are what has killed him ? " Her words poured 
 forth with rapid vehemence. 
 
 " Do you know what you are saying, Estabel ? " The 
 question came sternly, but Mr. Clymer would not yet 
 give way to open wrath. 
 
 "I know that Brace and Buckle failed and did not 
 pay him. And I know that it made him sick, and that 
 he is dead." 
 
 "Who told you so?" 
 
 " Dr. North, " replied the girl, beyond thinking of 
 fear or favor. 
 
 "Damn Dr. North! " 
 
 After that there was a sudden silence in the room. 
 The evil word of cursing, uttered by the leading vestry 
 man of the Church of the Beatitudes, petrified the 
 women, and there was no more that the leading vestry 
 man could immediately say. He had the grace to turn 
 away a moment from their faces, and resume something 
 of an outward control. 
 
 He took up a cigar that he had laid, half smoked, 
 upon the mantel edge, knocked off the dead ash, saw 
 that the spark was dead, and laid it down again. He 
 put his hand upon the back of his desk chair, as if he 
 would seat himself and return to his occupation which 
 the disturbance had interrupted. But his motions were 
 all vague and uneasy. The disturbance, in effect, re 
 mained. The two women stood there, looking at him,
 
 310 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 loth to leave as at the bad word, and not knowing what 
 to say. 
 
 He spoke again, covering his ebullition with a calmer 
 utterance, and a show of tolerant, if justly displeased, 
 reasoning. 
 
 "What has Dr. North to do with it? And what if 
 Brace and Buckle have failed ? We are not responsible 
 for that. We took them at their own offer. We 
 forced no contracts. We have nothing to do with the 
 people they employed. But why should I talk business 
 with you ? " He broke off, rebuking with the word 
 both his own false position and hers. 
 
 It was equivalent to "You have no business with the 
 matter. I am not bound to explain to you." But Es- 
 tabel was untouched by the intimation. She had lost 
 sight of everything but the one vital question the one 
 terribly absorbing fact. 
 
 "It seems to me," she said, "as if the responsibility 
 reached back all the way. As if somebody even at 
 the farther end of things ought to have made them 
 right." 
 
 She, as well as Mr. Clymer, spoke more quietly. 
 The thunderclap had left a certain calm behind it. 
 But she was still intense. "I dkn t bear," she went on, 
 warming, "to think of that twelve per cent, interest 
 and its being made out of this! I wouldn t have it 
 mine for anything; and I hate to have any of it yours, 
 Uncle Clymer! " 
 
 There was a generous pleading even in her swelling 
 expostulation. Its climax was an appeal altogether 
 tender. 
 
 "It seems to me, young lady," Mr. Clymer rejoined 
 deliberately, turning full toward her and looking down 
 upon her with a cool fixity that was more angry and 
 contemptuous than a frown, or any quick, outbursting 
 word, "that it is about time you were back in Stillwick." 
 "Oh, it is! It is!" broke forth Estabel, all her
 
 WEST GARDENS AND SHAWME STREET. 311 
 
 pain and passion, her hurt affection, her conflicting 
 gratitude and indignation, finding irresistible vent at 
 once. "I ought to have been there long ago. I ought 
 to have stayed there always. I will go right away. 
 But I never will forget all you have both done for 
 me ! " 
 
 And with that she fled out of the room. 
 
 "Poor child! " said Aunt Vera softly. "I m sorry 
 for her. She takes everything so hard. But I do 
 think she means right, Abel." 
 
 She would have saved Estabel, if she could, from her 
 husband s unyielding displeasure. She knew very well 
 what that could be. Things were at a troublous pass. 
 There had been Ulick North. That had not distressed 
 her very much; that was strictly Mr. Clymer s affair. 
 He could ask his nephew back whenever he chose. 
 There had even been a temporary relief in that direc 
 tion. But now here was Estabel. This sent down, 
 apparently, all her own house of cards. 
 
 She had been getting tired of her charge as for the 
 present, true. Matters had riot joined or balanced 
 themselves to happy or secure results. But there had 
 still been a possible future, and Estabel was all she had 
 to care for or to build upon. She had been willing to 
 shake off her responsibility to break up untoward 
 complications for a time, and make of Europe that 
 refuge which it was becoming for so many American 
 perplexities; but she had thought "things would work 
 round ; " that she could come back and take them up 
 again at a point of better advantage. Now, how would 
 it be ? How would Estabel ever be asked or per 
 suaded back again ? 
 
 All this flashed through her mind, dismayfully, while 
 she stood silent after her feeble intercession, which Mr. 
 Clymer noticed with no word. 
 
 " When does her school term close ? " he asked at 
 length, with a matter-of-fact brevity, as he might have
 
 312 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 inquired when a servant s time would be up. He was 
 gathering up loose papers from his desk and bestowing 
 them in their proper pigeon-holes and drawers. He 
 had reverted to his own affairs and occupation. The 
 little episode just over was of secondary consequence. 
 
 "In about a fortnight, I believe," said Mrs. Clymer. 
 
 "Very well. She can stay till then. Afterward, it 
 will not be convenient. We shall be closing up to go 
 abroad." 
 
 It was the first direct admission he had made of the 
 intent.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 DEPARTURES. 
 
 IT was one thing to say that Estabel might stay; it 
 might prove to be another question whether Mount Street 
 could keep her. 
 
 At that very moment, forgetful of everything but 
 that she had been told it was time she should be back 
 in Stillwick, she was hurriedly, agitatedly, beginning 
 her preparations to go. How could she stay another 
 day how could she eat another meal in the house 
 of a man who was under no obligation to her of personal 
 relationship, and who had said she had better be away ? 
 
 Aunt Vera found her in a confusion of nerves, of 
 tears, of open and emptied bureau drawers and scattered 
 array. The nerves and tears she was scarcely conscious 
 of ; the first were tense, the others brimmed up involun 
 tarily, and were dashed away from the clouding of her 
 sight before they fell. 
 
 "Now this is nonsense, Estabel," Aunt Vera said, 
 with an effort at coolness. "You can do nothing about 
 all this at present. Put away your things, and calm 
 yourself down. This is Saturday night." 
 
 Of course it was ; Estabel had had no method in her 
 madness. Sunday was to be lived through, at the very 
 least. There would be no getting to Stillwick no 
 sending of any word thither before the Monday. 
 And then, Monday, there was school; there was Mr. 
 Satterwood. The girl was helplessly hemmed in. 
 
 When the last thought came to her, she gave way; 
 she threw herself along her bed, upon the side of which
 
 314 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 she had heen sitting, folding up some underclothing, and 
 let her head fall upon the little pile of it, and the big 
 sobs break forth. 
 
 "Estabel, stop! Don t be hysterical! Your uncle 
 did not mean to be hasty with you. He did not mean 
 this, this minute. You provoked him. You said things 
 that he could not bear. You accused him." 
 
 "I m forced into doing horrid things. I can t help 
 it. There s ever so much that ought not to be; it s 
 a cruel, wrong world the way people manage it. 
 No ; Uncle Clymer was not hasty except when " 
 She would not finish that sentence. "He said to me 
 just what he meant. He does not want me here 
 any more. Oh, Aunt Vera, how soon can I go ? " 
 
 She lifted herself up again as she put the question, 
 and faced Aunt Vera with her flushed cheeks and tear- 
 swollen eyes. Aunt Vera felt herself in a bad place. 
 
 She fell back upon mere circumstance. "Your school 
 will not be over for a fortnight, or more. Of course, 
 you cannot break away from that in this fashion. And 
 you know your uncle never meant it. He only said 
 rather bluntly, to be sure that you were better off 
 among things and people that you understood. You 
 know you don t fit in here very well, Estabel. You 
 know you are a kind of square peg." She tried to 
 laugh, and make as light of the matter as possible. 
 "When you are older you will see a good many things 
 differently." 
 
 "I must write to Aunt Esther. I will do just as 
 she says." 
 
 "Don t write a word. If I ve done anything kind 
 by you, Estabel, do as I say about this. I don t want 
 your other aunt to know." 
 
 She began to speak now from her sincerest thought. 
 and so with clearest effective force. She would not 
 have Miss Charlock told. She would not give up her 
 turn of charge quite so disastrously as this. Besides,
 
 DEPARTURES. 315 
 
 she knew Miss Esther Charlock ; she knew the Charlock 
 pride and determination, all through. She would not 
 yet burn her ships behind her. She would not cancel 
 all possibility of that by and by with which she still 
 consoled herself. Mrs. Clymer s motives had been 
 mixed, and in a large part frivolous ; but among them 
 had been that which was genuine and prevailing; she 
 was really fond of Estabel, in such way as she knew 
 how to be fond. 
 
 And to this Estabel yielded, as she always did. "I 
 won t write anything without your knowing, " she said. 
 "But I do want to go." 
 
 "You will go properly, and naturally, when school is 
 over. It would have been so, at any rate. Mr. Clymer 
 and I are expecting to go abroad before the end of June. 
 And between now and then he will have to be away in 
 New York and Washington. I should be all alone ; and 
 we shall have to say good-by for a long time." 
 
 Before she left the room she kissed the girl. It was 
 all made up between these two. For Mr. Clymer, 
 Estabel resolved, upon long reflection, that she not 
 ought, perhaps she did not humble herself quite to 
 this but that she would, offer him some apology for 
 the remonstrance which, coming from her in such im 
 petuous w r ay, had doubtless seemed to him so inexcus 
 able. She could apologize for speech and manner that 
 had offended, but she would take back nothing else. 
 That would leave the "ought " on Uncle Clymer s side; 
 he would be in her debt for his own hard word. 
 
 The hard, unseemly word that he had spoken against 
 Ulick North, Estabel could not forget. 
 
 She had grown to be attached to her aunt s husband 
 with a respecting, grateful regard. But she felt now 
 as if she could never even like him any more. 
 
 Events took themselves into their own hands. On 
 the Monday, after a stiff and mostly silent Sunday inter 
 val, during which, however, Estabel found opportunity
 
 316 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 to say to Mr. Clymer that she was sorry she had 
 displeased him by anything that he thought imperti 
 nent, and he answered, somewhat loftily, that it might 
 pass, she was young, and would learn better, that 
 gentleman left home himself, according to a certain 
 prior intention, but no doubt feeling it a little more 
 comfortable for all concerned that he should get away, 
 and his wife and her niece be quietly by themselves as 
 soon as possible. He%ad to be in New York on Tues 
 day, he said ; he might, or might not, keep on to Wash 
 ington. He would be at home for the following Sunday 
 and Monday ; then he might have to run out to Chicago, 
 and even round by Montreal. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer would have time and place to herself, 
 and unhurried opportunity for attention to her house 
 affairs, and all the needful arrangements for closing up. 
 
 "And you will help me, Estabel, " Aunt Vera had 
 said kindly. 
 
 In the midst of all that was grievous, Estabel felt 
 gladly that hindrance had been reprieval. She was 
 learning the wisdom of putting off impetuous action. 
 It was very nice to have Aunt Vera behave so kindly 
 to her. If she had been allowed to carry out her first 
 impulsive purpose without remonstrance, she would not 
 have known how generous Aunt Vera was to her in her 
 heart. And she was thankful, now, that she had been 
 prevented from making the contretemps a family affair. 
 What good would it do to set Aunt Esther and Aunt 
 Vera against each other? It would be much like a 
 child making trouble between her parents. She resolved 
 that she would never say a word about it ; only, all the 
 same, she did not think she could ever again come to 
 stay at Uncle Clymer s. 
 
 Sara Sullivant helped her restore her things to nearly 
 their usual order. It was not worth while to unpack 
 everything; she would be going home so soon. Still- 
 wick icas home, after all.
 
 DEPARTURES. 317 
 
 She gave to Sara such brief explanatory hint of trou 
 ble as could not be avoided ; as indeed, with Archibald 
 permeating the house in the discharge of his ubiquitous 
 duties, it would be an absurd pretense to withhold. 
 
 "I thought at first I must go home," she said; "but 
 I am not going to, now." 
 
 "Shows your sense," was the astute Sara s answer. 
 "It s a poor plan to go off mad. Don t leave any 
 chance for straightening things out. It s always easier to 
 smooth over on the spot, than t is to come back a-purpose 
 to. Settle as you go along debts and querrels, my sir 
 used to say. An gener lly, if you wait a spell, things 
 happen along to help." 
 
 The way they happened to help still further was this : 
 
 On the Tuesday morning, bright and early, Simon 
 Peter Babson s wagon, with its wheels at their wide 
 incline from their axles making eccentric tracks along 
 the freshly sprinkled macadam, came yawing up the 
 hill ; and at Number 84 Aunt Esther, with grave, im 
 portant face, alighted at the Clymers door, just as Es- 
 tabel came out upon the steps, setting off for school. 
 
 The girl dropped her book satchel, and shot herself 
 down upon the sidewalk with open arms. "Dear Aunt 
 Ettie ! " she exclaimed. "What can have brought you, 
 just when I wanted a good talk with you ? " 
 
 There was a pathos in her voice. She was sad 
 enough to-day. Lilian s father was to be buried and 
 she was to go to school as usual. 
 
 "Simon Peter Babson brought me. Come into the 
 house and I 11 tell you why." 
 
 They met Aunt Vera at the drawing-room door, en 
 tering the room with a vase of flowers which she had 
 been freshening in the pantry. The "other aunts " 
 mutually stopped short. 
 
 Aunt Esther s face was solemn. Mrs. Clymer s was 
 amazed, perturbed. Had Estabel written, after all?
 
 318 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel looked from one to the other. "Please, 
 what is it ? " she asked in puzzled apprehension. 
 
 " Colonel Henslee died suddenly yesterday morn 
 ing. I ve come to take you home, Estabel, to the 
 funeral." 
 
 "Oh! " The exclamation broke from Estabel with 
 an uprising force borne from the depth of restrained, 
 accumulated feeling. It uttered more than she was 
 aware ; more than Miss Charlock could well understand. 
 Still less could she comprehend when Estabel turned 
 to her, put her arms around her neck, and began to cry 
 softly. 
 
 "Why, I didn t think you would care so much as 
 this," she said, with a gentle surprise. "Or ain t you 
 well?" 
 
 "Oh, yes, I m well," the answer came through a 
 checked sob. "But it s all funerals! Lilian s father 
 is going to be buried to-day." 
 
 It was such a comfort to have somebody who would 
 be sorry with her for Lilian, that she yielded to the 
 comfort of it and cried on. Mrs. Clymer realized for 
 an instant what her own unsympathy had been. 
 
 "There, there! Don t take on about it. He s 
 better off. Everybody s better off when they get 
 through this straggle and snarl, and we ought to be 
 willing. Come into the parlor and we 11 talk things 
 over. " 
 
 " Certainly. Come into the parlor, " said Aunt Vera, 
 with procrastinated hospitality. 
 
 " Did you want to go ? " Aunt Esther put the ques 
 tion with an intuitive sense of how Estabel might have 
 been kept from her friend s side in this trouble. But 
 it was curiously relevant to all the rest. 
 
 "Oh, yes. I am glad you have come for me. I 
 wanted you." 
 
 "I mean, to this other funeral. Only I m afraid it 
 will be too much."
 
 DEPARTURES. 319 
 
 "It has been typhoid," said Aunt Vera. "I have 
 not thought it proper that she should go to the house." 
 
 "I see. Perhaps not. And yet you may keep away 
 from things and catch em, and catch em when you 
 keep away from em. It is n t much use dodging. 
 Still, one funeral at a time is about enough. And there 
 ain t much time, anyway. Write a note to Lilian, 
 Estabel, and go home with me. Afterwards, we 11 see 
 what we can do. What you want is to be some comfort 
 to her; and I don t know as it amounts to much to 
 undertake that in the midst of the particulars. " 
 
 It was necessary to return to Stillwick with as much 
 promptness as possible. While Estabel was upstairs 
 writing her note and preparing to go, Aunt Esther in 
 terviewed the other aunt shrewdly. 
 
 "What is it, sister-in-law-in-law ? Estabel s got 
 something more on her mind than this Hawtree trouble, 
 or else mixed in with it. What ails her? And what 
 are you holding in ? " 
 
 To ask that, point-blank, is merely a signal for an 
 extra bar to be put up. Aunt Vera s impassiveness 
 was determinate, and so more significant than before. 
 
 "I don t know of anything but the Hawtree trouble," 
 she returned. "Estabel is strangely taken up with 
 those people." 
 
 "And they ain t the sort you want her taken up 
 with. I see. Do you want me to have her back in 
 Stillwick for good ? " 
 
 "Not till her school is over. Then we have decided 
 to go to Europe again. I cannot tell when we shall 
 come back. " 
 
 " M! Well, then, this experiment s over. I ain t 
 sorry. I s pose you think it s been a failure. Can t 
 always tell. Half the time folks think a first-rate 
 thing has been a failure, and they think it s been a fail 
 ure when it s really worked first rate. Time 11 tell." 
 
 Aunt Vera was comparatively content to leave it so.
 
 320 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I hope it may turn out for the best," she said. 
 "I ve done my best." 
 
 "According to your lights. That s all anybody can 
 do. And living needs all kinds of lights upon it to 
 show the way or where there isn t any way, maybe." 
 
 Aunt Vera pressed an early luncheon upon them. 
 She was very nice about the note. "Archibald shall 
 go right down with it," she said. "And you may send 
 these violets. I was going to take them to old Mrs. 
 Moraine. But I can get some more." 
 
 "Why, that s dear of you! " said Estabel, and came 
 and took the violets, and kissed her. 
 
 They went away with kind good-bys, and without 
 any transpiring of uncomfortable complications. 
 
 But Aunt Esther knew the other aunt; and she had 
 her thoughts, which bore fruit later.
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 IN THE AWMBY ROOM. 
 
 WHAT Aunt Esther brought to pass was this. Es- 
 tabel did not stay for those last weeks of school at Aunt 
 Vera s. Miss Henslee was persuaded by her brother 
 that it would be better for her to come away from Still- 
 wick for a little time, before entering upon the needful 
 arrangements at the Old Place, or even deciding defi 
 nitely what her arrangements for the future should be. 
 Although Colonel Henslee s death had come suddenly 
 at the end, there had been a long time of helpless inva- 
 lidism and close personal care, which had greatly worn 
 upon Miss Lucy. 
 
 "You ought to have a change," her brother told her. 
 "And it will be altogether too solitary for you here, 
 just now." 
 
 " But I shall be solitary anywhere, " the poor lady 
 had urged. "You and Harry will be away all day. 
 And I don t care to go out, and I couldn t see com 
 pany. I have got to learn to be solitary. People must, 
 when they have outlived almost everything." 
 
 "That s to be thought of later," said the kind-hearted 
 merchant cheerily. He was not without his own half- 
 developed ideas, but it was too soon to formulate them 
 yet. "We have both been solitary, Lucy. Now we 
 have each other to consider. And Harry. Come to 
 town with us for a little while." 
 
 And then Cousin Esther, who was present, suggested, 
 "Why not take Estabel till school is over? Vera 
 Clymer can spare her conveniently enough, now she s
 
 322 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 upsetting everything again to go to Europe. Estabel s 
 good company, and she s young. Older folks want 
 something round them that isn t old; that s why the 
 generations come up so fast, three times in a good long 
 life." 
 
 Miss Henslee brightened. She wondered she had 
 not thought of it before. Miss Charlock did not think 
 that strange ; it would not have occurred to herself but 
 for that glimpse of second seeing which is the discern 
 ing of relative this and that, and putting the obvious 
 two and two together. 
 
 Estabel had told nothing which she held it in gener 
 osity not to tell. But she talked of Lilian, and spoke 
 of the facts of her sorrow simply as such. 
 
 "Mr. Hawtree was tired out and discouraged. He 
 had lost money by his building contracts. And then 
 the sickness came, and he could n t hold out against it. 
 That is what Dr. North said. " 
 
 "Those West Garden houses? " 
 
 "Yes. Those were the last. And the largest work 
 he ever had. They were so happy about it at the be 
 ginning. Then everything turned out more dear in 
 price than had been calculated, and Brace and Buckle 
 failed, owing him; and it s the last and the smallest 
 the whole load seems to fall on." 
 
 Estabel s voice lowered, and she stopped with a long 
 sigh. 
 
 "And the big fellows stand safe on the top of the 
 heap, with their hands in their pockets. Chooty-choo! " 
 
 Miss Esther understood it all now. as clearly as if 
 she had been " a fly on the wall " with human per 
 ceptions during that family colloquy in Mount Street 
 on the Saturday night. 
 
 "There s some folks won t know what this world 
 means till they get into the other; not if they go round 
 and round this one forty-leven times, " she said suc 
 cinctly. "And round and round or back and forth
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 323 
 
 ain t compassing it, neither; no more is gethering up 
 the dust of it, till the whole man s turned to it. When 
 the weighin in the balance comes, it 11 be Tekel; and all 
 the mountains of the earth, crumbled fine, won t bear 
 down the scales. Izyer fortieth." 
 
 Miss Charlock stuck a pin with vigor into the band 
 of ribbon she was fastening to a bonnet, and with her 
 long shears snipped off at one clip the superfluous 
 length. With the action she fixed and cut off 
 certain points of mental inference and decision just as 
 resolutely. 
 
 So it was settled, at the due opportunity; and Es- 
 tabel had just time, before Cousin Lucy came up to 
 Topthorpe, to explain, and gather up her belongings; 
 and without any breach, but rather with a relieved per 
 ception, on either side, of the timely fitness of things, 
 she and Aunt Vera said their preliminary good-bys 
 affectionately, and Estabel joined Miss Henslee on her 
 arrival in Casino Crescent. 
 
 Aunt Estker also came up for two or three days, Sun 
 day being included, leaving the shop and housekeeping 
 with Miss Gillespy, to whom it was a rollicking holi 
 day. 
 
 "You see, I do get tired of over and over," she said, 
 brimming into pleased and voluble speech with her 
 assent. 
 
 "I was reckoning up this morning, while I made my 
 bed, how many times I had done that same thing, and 
 mostly in the same place. Why, ever since I was ten 
 years old. Forty-five years. Forty-five times three 
 hundred and sixty-five. I had to stop and fetch a 
 pencil and a piece of paper to do it : sixteen thousand 
 four hundred and twenty-five times! Don t it tire a 
 person to think of it ? " 
 
 "Why didn t you count the miles you ve walked, or 
 even the steps you ve taken ? " 
 
 "Yes; and brushing your hair, and your teeth
 
 324 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 while you had em and washing teaspoons, and dust 
 ing the same old things " 
 
 " And eating breakfast and dinner and supper 
 three meals every day ; three times sixteen thousand 
 four hundred and what is it ? That s the hardest of 
 all, to take in at one swallow and all over again." 
 
 "And nothing to show for it but about a hundred 
 and fifteen pounds of tired-out old body, " said spare 
 little Miss Eliza Gillespy, the persistent ambition of 
 whose life it had been to grow round and shapely, and 
 who had never achieved it. 
 
 She took the subject an grand serieux to the last 
 point, not discerning that Miss Charlock was treating 
 it in burlesque. 
 
 "It s very good we don t have to calculate, forward 
 nor back nor take any responsibility about pounds 
 and cubits, nor the white or black of the hairs of our 
 heads," said Miss Charlock. "I guess it all goes to 
 show that it isn t the steps, nor the mouthfuls, nor the 
 pickings-up nor layings-down, that signify ; nor the 
 flesh and bones that have gone through it all and come 
 out so much the same old sixpence. It stands to reason 
 there s something else to grow of it. Not but what 
 we ve had lots else, all the time sunshine and sum 
 mers and bird-singing and flower-blowing; and cosy 
 storms and winter fires; and people to see, and some 
 to love. We Ve been alive, Lizy Gillespy, that s the 
 whole story. And it s to be continued." 
 
 "Well," said Eliza resignedly, "I trust it 11 grow 
 more interestin in the second volyum. My! Won t 
 I have a good time eveniu s, among your books! " 
 
 Miss Charlock had several objects in her projected 
 visit to Topthorpe, among which, perhaps, the opportu 
 nity for giving a clear good time to Eliza Gillespy had 
 not been overlooked. That was always the "and then " 
 which dropped an extra sugarplum into the scale after 
 the beam was even.
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 325 
 
 But chiefly she meant to see the Hawtrees, and to try 
 if there might he any possihle way to jog circumstance 
 for them. Mr. Henslee was one of the stock company 
 owners and builders of West Gardens. She meant that 
 he at least should learn what she felt reasonably sure 
 Estabel had, in some precipitate, self-defeating way, 
 made known in Mount Street. Happily, Harrison 
 Henslee and Abel Clymer were two somewhat different 
 types of business men. 
 
 The first thing to be done was a little justice, if it 
 might be ; the next best thing kindness might 
 come later. Miss Charlock had already as had Mr. 
 Henslee certain indefinite lights upon plans of her 
 own glimmering in the horizon of her mind; but like 
 him she was refraining from pointing them out prema 
 turely. However brilliant one s inspirations may be for 
 others, one must wait to disclose them until those others 
 can be led up more or less nearly to the necessary point 
 of view. 
 
 "I want you to go with me to the Hawtrees to 
 morrow, " said Aunt Esther, looking up from her knit 
 ting and across her spectacles, as they all sat together 
 in the big "awmry room" in Casino Crescent. It was 
 the "awmry" room, because one whole side of it was 
 taken up with an immense piece of furniture ward 
 robe, cabinets, and drawers heavy with antique carv 
 ing and brilliant with rich old polished brass that 
 had been brought in pieces from England in the last 
 century ; they said from the real old Hensleigh Hall ; 
 and that had to be built in wherever it was placed. It 
 had been stored in cases for a long time before Harrison 
 Henslee bought this house; the ceilings were not high 
 enough for it at Stillwick-Henslee ; nobody thought it 
 would be likely ever to be moved again unless, indeed, 
 as had been mooted, an alcove were thrown out, or a floor 
 raised on purpose at the country homestead. The old 
 colonel had never cared for that. They all supposed
 
 326 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 it had come to its final anchorage in this stately dwell 
 ing in the central high precinct of the city. But they 
 reckoned without the premonition of Greater Topthorpe. 
 
 "I want you to go with me to the Hawtrees , Es- 
 tabel." 
 
 Estabel looked up with a grateful smile. Harry 
 Henslee said, "Good for you, Aunt Esther! " He was 
 playing checkers with Estabel, and as he spoke he 
 moved a man so that she immediately put one of hers 
 en prise, and then leaped over three of his into the king 
 row. 
 
 Harry laughed, and sweeping the pieces into their 
 box, turned to Miss Charlock, to whom he spoke again, 
 without any laugh at all. 
 
 "I m afraid they re going to be very poor," he said. 
 
 Aunt Esther had called forth precisely the response 
 and general attention that she wished. 
 
 "Then Estabel has told you? " 
 
 "Not much. Only that. She thinks they can t 
 have money enough." 
 
 "She told me Estabel, just explain it again, if 
 you please." 
 
 Estabel looked a little surprised. Aunt Esther s 
 comprehension was always clear, and her memory dis 
 tinct. Why did she refer it all to her? But she stated 
 the facts again. 
 
 "He lost money by those contracts." 
 
 Mr. Henslee laid down his evening paper. "What 
 contracts? " he asked. "And how came you to know? " 
 
 "Those houses in West Gardens. And Brace and 
 Buckle failed. And Dr. North said it was the worry 
 and the wearing d5ut that made him sick." 
 
 Estabel carefully reserved this time her own person 
 ality and indignation. It might be supposed that what 
 Dr. North had told the family had come round, in gen 
 erality, to her. Mr. Henslee did not know how rigor 
 ously she had been kept out of direct communication.
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 327 
 
 Aunt Esther, still putting her twos and twos to 
 gether, fitted this subdued reticence to her theory, and 
 was conclusively assured that the girl had spoken freely 
 and been snubbed effectually elsewhere. She boldly 
 took up the word herself. 
 
 "Contracts, seems to me, are generally the devil s 
 precautions. They always take the flesh out some 
 where. It s nip and tuck all the way through; who 
 can nip the closest, and tuck away the smartest. The 
 best plan, I guess, would be to settle up afterwards, 
 according to how things come out. Then you can see 
 what s fair, all round." 
 
 "It would n t do to leave things at loose ends like 
 that, " said Mr. Henslee, gaining time, perhaps, by 
 means of a little incidental argument. "It only turns 
 the advantage the power of taking advantage over 
 to the other side. You must know where you are in busi 
 ness matters. A contract should be just, but settling 
 afterward would be confusion." 
 
 "I don t mean at the end of the world," said Miss 
 Charlock. "Every Saturday night, say; or every first 
 of the month; when the bills come in, and the money 
 has to go out. Just keep square as you go along; that 
 looks plain enough when everything is fair. Let the 
 capital take the risks and pay for brains and time and 
 labor what they re worth, and on the spot. It s all 
 wages. Agree with your adversary quickly, while 
 you re in the way with him. That appears to be the 
 New Testament of it." 
 
 "Adversary yes. When the question is the con 
 doning of a quarrel. We re talking of agreements, 
 that suppose no quarrel, but an honorable understand 
 ing." 
 
 "And don t that tell you how to agree? And as to 
 1 adversary we re talking of business. Judging by 
 the common look of things, everybody s an adversary, 
 more or less, that you do business with."
 
 328 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Mr. Henslee laughed. "An adversary is only the 
 opposite party, of course. The world s a game. You 
 have to play your own side of it." 
 
 "To play even, the strongest side gives odds some 
 times, " said Miss Charlock, and there stopped. She 
 had hrought the matter home to the starting-point of 
 responsibility ; treating in the abstract what Estabel 
 had forced by application to personal offense. Estabel, 
 listening, perceived the better discretion. But then, 
 this was Mr. Harrison Henslee. 
 
 That gentleman now addressed herself. 
 
 "Of course," he remarked, "you don t know just 
 how this Mr. Hawtree has left his affairs. If we could 
 learn, practically, exactly how matters stand, we might 
 perhaps see the way to something. We can t, in the 
 nature of things, follow up all Brace and Buckle s obli 
 gations ; any crookedness there must rest with them. 
 But there might be a chance somehow to lend a hand 
 in a special case like this. How could we get at it, do 
 you think ? " 
 
 " R. Thistlestoke would know, " Estabel answered 
 quietly. 
 
 Mr. Henslee, she could perceive, would by no means 
 go all lengths rashly, as she in her enthusiasm would 
 have people do ; but he was evidently a man to move 
 unhesitatingly in the right direction, as soon and as far 
 as he could see it clearly. So she simply replied to his 
 question, in the new wisdom she was learning of her 
 generation. 
 
 "I will see Mr. Thistlestoke and Dr. North," Mr. 
 Henslee said. And with that he took up his paper again. 
 
 Estabel felt the satisfaction that comes of having put 
 things that are beyond one s self into strong, competent 
 hands. And Aunt Esther resumed her knitting, saying 
 within herself, "That bread s set to rise." 
 
 On the Sunday afternoon she went with Estabel to 
 Shawme Street.
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 329 
 
 They were taken up into the Gladmother s room. 
 All the sunshine was let in, and all the rainbows were 
 shimmering their gentle glories, broken into beautiful 
 morsels and streams of separate or gathered color, 
 through the quiet place. 
 
 She sat in her great easy chair, in snowy cap and 
 kerchief, and soft gown of black, her countenance se 
 rene, her posture restful. 
 
 Lilian had been reading to her. An open book lay 
 where she had left it when she went downstairs to wel 
 come them. Her straw bonnet was upon the bed, as 
 she had put it off when she had come back from church. 
 It was not black; there was no black about it; the 
 white straw was crossed with a dark, dark green ribbon, 
 and among the sheathing loops of the lightly knotted bow 
 upon one side some sprays of lily of the valley were so 
 set as to seem springing from out their natural leafage. 
 
 Her dress was of pale gray woolen; two or three 
 stems of real lilies were fastened in her golden brooch 
 and dropped their sweet bells down upon her bosom. 
 
 There was nothing here of distress or of foreboding; 
 it was a holy peace. The day was heaven s day; it 
 parted the days of earth with blessed pause. 
 
 "We are all here," said the Gladmother, with grand 
 uplift in her low, calm utterance. "It s only to make 
 the place sweet and ready ; and they come. There is 
 nothing in the way now. It is so different from watch 
 ing the weakness and the pain that came between." 
 
 It was as if they had risen out of it with him who 
 had died, and were walking with him above it all, in 
 the light of the living. 
 
 Whatever Miss Charlock and Estabel had come to 
 say or to ask, withdrew for the time from their lips and 
 passed out of their thought. What was there here to 
 comfort ? What care or trouble to inquire into ? Cer 
 tainly, at least, this was not the moment, and the way 
 was not open, for that.
 
 330 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 But Miss Charlock was a practical woman. She 
 would not ultimately forget the facts she knew, nor the 
 things that she had come for. After a half hour that 
 was like the time of the silence in heaven which must 
 have been a hushing into a great peace, between earth 
 quake and earthquake, when the voice had just spoken 
 the everlasting promise of the feeding in heavenly pas 
 ture and the leading beside living water, and the wiping 
 away of all tears when these things echoed in the 
 spirit, and if there were words they were but as breaths 
 of calm Aunt Esther, more ministered to than 
 ministering, withdrew with Estabel, and Lilian accom 
 panied them downstairs. 
 
 At the door Miss Charlock turned. "I shall come 
 again," she said. "And I want to ask things, and I 
 hope you won t think me meddlesome, for they ve got 
 to be thought of. Your grandmother is in heaven, and 
 I don t dare to call her down. But all the more, you 11 
 want somebody to talk to about what has to be done in 
 this world. And I don t believe anybody cares more 
 that it should be comfortable for you than Estabel and 
 I do." 
 
 Lilian kissed and thanked her, and begged her to 
 ,come when she could, and say what she pleased. 
 
 And so the two went off along Shawme Street, and 
 across the long diagonal of Old Park, and back to the 
 Crescent. 
 
 . "I mean to see this thing straightened out in some 
 shape, " said Aunt Esther, as they crossed Trepeake 
 Street, "if I stay till Thursday. And Eliza Gillespy 
 may go her lengths. " 
 
 Three intervening days were not much; but they re 
 presented a campaign, as "all summer " did in years 
 afterward, to General Grant. And Mr. Henslee was a 
 man of business promptness. 
 
 Before Monday night he had seen Dr. North and R. 
 Thistlestoke, and Mr. Abel Clymer; was possessed of
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 331 
 
 all that was to be known of the Hawtree affairs, and had 
 made his first approaches advisedly, perhaps, at the 
 most difficult point with the questioning of what might 
 reasonably or possibly be done. 
 
 R. Thistlestoke held the insurance policy. "It was 
 to satisfy him, he said. "I could lose the money as 
 well as he could. And I never had any intention that 
 the little girl should lose. But I can t see clear how to 
 make em take it back. They 11 Avant it all explained; 
 and they knew he owed me ; and there s the document, 
 indorsed over to my name. I m only waiting to con 
 trive how to get round it." 
 
 "Perhaps it may take several of us to contrive. If 
 Brace and Buckle s paper could be redeemed or a part 
 of it there 11 be some sort of a percentage, and some 
 of the notes might be bought up you needn t explain, 
 further than that. You had better offer your help, and 
 take out letters of administration you are quite the 
 natural person and we may save something out of the 
 estate." 
 
 "And fix the figures a little if they need it," said R. 
 Thistlestoke, with a shrewdly honest smile. "There 
 are some little twists, I take it, that may be step-rela 
 tions to the father of lies; but step-relations don t in 
 herit ! " There was a glee in his bit of humor, that 
 might have been wicked, if his purpose had been; there 
 is a certain delight in daring, righteously, for an emer 
 gency, an ordinarily unlawful thing. Probably it .is 
 that, in a crude demonstration, which animates some 
 well-known destructive activities at a fire. So, also, 
 men kill, in battle. The dogs of human nature are ex 
 ultantly let loose in war. 
 
 If it is needed yes," said Mr. Henslee. "But I 
 think if you take affairs in hand, they will leave every 
 thing to you. An old lady and a young girl what 
 can they understand, except what you tell them? 
 You 11 have the papers, and you 11 look it all up.
 
 332 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Surely you can collect a life insurance, and pay over 
 that." 
 
 R. Thistlestoke shook his strong, close-thatched gray 
 head. "They knew he owed me," he repeated. "And 
 that he d given up something to settle it. He talked 
 in his sickness, and I don t know how much he mayn t 
 have said, or what they understand. But they 11 want 
 to see eveiy thing now, before they take a cent. That 
 kind of thing runs in a family." 
 
 "We shall have to settle you through Brace and 
 Buckle, then." And Mr. Henslee put on his hat, and 
 went away to find Abel Clymer. 
 
 Mr. Clymer "did not propose to cash any of Brace 
 and Buckle s failed paper." "Business is business," 
 he said. "But I m with you in the matter of a sub 
 scription, and I don t care how you apply it. What 
 figure ? " And he turned to his desk-table, and drew 
 forth his check-book. 
 
 "I 11 tell you when I ve been all round," said Mr. 
 Henslee. "There are six of us. The life insurance 
 is for five thousand. I think we can manage that 
 much. " 
 
 "All right. But it s not a good precedent." Mr. 
 Clymer was in for it, and would by no means retreat or 
 hesitate. He had no mind to be left out of good com 
 pany in a good, above-board generosity, or be obviously 
 taken aback by the amount demanded. He thanked 
 Heaven devoutly that he could afford it. The appeal 
 was to his record on earth, not to the account kept else 
 where. He was in a very good humor when Mr. Hens 
 lee took his leave. 
 
 "You ve got that little niece of my wife s at your 
 house, I find," he said. "It s easy to track a mouse 
 sometimes ; I think I can follow her up on this. She be 
 gan with me, but she slapped the thing rather too directly 
 in my face. Tell her that a man does n t always mean 
 every word he says, when he s taken by surprise and
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM. 333 
 
 provoked to say it in a hurry. And, by the way, if 
 you see that fellow Ulick, tell him, will you, that I 
 expect him to call here before we go away. I shall be 
 off a good deal just at present, but a week or two will 
 finish that, and we don t sail till the 30th." 
 
 In the awmry room again that evening Mr. Henslee 
 reported to his family party. 
 
 "I think we shall raise the money," he said. 
 "Thistlestoke is to manage the matter with the Haw- 
 trees. A good, honest fellow, that. Estabel, what 
 did you say to your uncle Mr. Clymer about 
 this ? " He looked at Estabel with a quizzical smile. 
 She started, and the color flushed up into her face. 
 
 "No harm," said Mr. Henslee. "I was only curious 
 to know, from a remark of his, what a mouse could 
 have slapped in his face." 
 
 "Probably a tale," said Estabel demurely. 
 
 "With a pretty sharp, quick lash? Never mind. 
 It s all right. He s been very liberal about this." 
 
 "I only told him," Estabel resolutely explained, with 
 a quite recovered calmness, "what Dr. North said about 
 Mr. Hawtree s sickness, and the worry that brought 
 it on. But I ought not to have repeated it in the way 
 I did. I said it was all those wicked contracts." 
 
 "Portia, rebuking half a dozen Shylocks! " said Mr. 
 Henslee in great apparent amusement. "And what did 
 he say? " 
 
 "I don t believe I had better tell you." 
 
 Estabel caught her Aunt Esther s keen, inquisitorial 
 glance. Thumbscrews would not have wrung from her 
 what Uncle Clymer had said to herself. But she saw 
 that its nature was likely to be inferred, confirming a 
 first guess ; and she made instant daring diversion. 
 
 "He said, Damn Dr. North. She repeated the 
 remark in as quiet, matter of fact a way as if it had 
 been in any other three words. 
 
 Mr. Henslee and Harry shouted. " Tell the truth,
 
 334 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 and shame the devil. Estahel, you always do ! " the 
 young man cried. 
 
 Even Cousin Lucy smiled. 
 
 Aunt Esther scarcely relaxed her scrutinizing gaze, 
 while Mr. Henslee gave Estabel, as seemed here appro 
 priate, her uncle s message, which she received comfort 
 ably, referable as it was to the explosive observation 
 she had just quoted. 
 
 "Please don t tell Dr. North," she begged, with a 
 freshly aroused sense of unwarrantableness in the use 
 of his name to which she had been led. 
 
 "Oh, I m commissioned with a good word for him 
 also," returned Mr. Henslee. "And I shall not exceed 
 my commission." 
 
 Aunt Esther turned her look on him still gravely. 
 
 "I never studied algebray, " she observed. "But it 
 looks to me as if there was some algebray at work. 
 There s an unknown quantity somewhere, and only one 
 small peg to hang your calculation upon, if I understand 
 the sort of thing. Well I ain t one to want to know 
 more than I m told; nor to be wise above that which 
 is written. I believe that s in the Bible, though I 
 was looking for it in the Concordance the other day, 
 and couldn t find it." 
 
 " Estabel, " she said to her niece when they were un 
 dressing in their adjoining rooms that night, "I sup 
 pose you mean to go and see your other aunt and 
 your uncle-in-law now and then, before they start, 
 don t you?" 
 
 And Estabel answered, "Why, of course, Aunt 
 Esther." 
 
 " Chooty-choo ! You re a sphinx, " said Miss Char 
 lock. Then as she laid her last particular hairpin in 
 its particular, detached place upon her dressing-table, 
 she went on, with certain enigmatical enunciations. 
 
 "I can tell you one little bit of experience, though.
 
 IN THE AWMRY ROOM 335 
 
 You can t bring even a lead pencil to a good clean 
 point by slashing away at what holds the whole thing 
 together. You 11 be sure to break it off short. First 
 sharpen down carefully what point you ve got, and 
 when that s fine you can cut away all the wood you 
 want to. Wood s habit, and lead s character." 
 
 "Thank you, Aunt Esther. I 11 remember that the 
 next time I sharpen a lead pencil." 
 
 Aunt Esther thought to herself, as she got into bed 
 without any reminder of the Old Serpent, " That 
 girl s one of us now. She s grown up." 
 
 Ulick North called in Mount Street. He was re 
 ceived as if he had been there once a week. But as he 
 took his leave his uncle, accompanying him to the door, 
 said to him, "We haven t seen so much of you lately 
 as we used to. I hope you have been kept busy in 
 your practice. I wouldn t have liked to go away with 
 out saying good-by. We don t think exactly alike 
 about everything; but I don t quarrel, as I told you 
 before. If I get back all right, maybe we shall under 
 stand each other better. We shall both be a little 
 older, though that doesn t make so much difference - at 
 my time of life. If I don t get back well, you 
 mustn t be surprised if you find an old man can have 
 whims as well as a young one." 
 
 It was very enigmatical. He said it in a perfectly 
 friendly tone, and even lightly ; but it was evident that 
 by figure as well as in fact, he stood in firm conscious 
 ness upon his own doorstone, and Ulick North upon a 
 step below. It was also clear that this was meant for 
 the good-by. 
 
 " Good-night, uncle ; and good-by, " the young doctor 
 responded. "I hope you 11 have a pleasant trip, and 
 come back all right, and in good time." 
 
 He went down into the street, and Mr. Clymer shut 
 the door.
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 AUNT ESTHER S SOLO. 
 
 MB. THISTLESTOKE advised the selling of the house. 
 A mortgage was a millstone, always ; and it was hard 
 to make renting pay. Repairs, insurance, taxes a 
 house was a kind of a highway robber, anyway, unless 
 you could afford to make a home of it. 
 
 "Of course, it s hard for the old lady, especially. 
 But I take it she s one of the sort that you may turn 
 out of house, if you please, but you can t out of home. 
 She 11 see it s more reasonable ; the income of five 
 thousand dollars isn t a terrible sight, for a living; and 
 they won t want to eat up their cake. Land is coming 
 up on Shawme Street ; folks are finding out that the 
 river is pleasant. I should n t wonder if the property 
 was to bring considerable over the mortgage. As it is 
 now, it won t pay any interest, except to the mort 
 gagee." 
 
 "It s good and it s safe," Estabel said to Miss 
 Charlock soberly. "They 11 see it s right, and they 11 
 do it. But the lovely old rooms, and the rainbows ! 
 Where else can they go ? "What will they do ? " 
 
 "I sha n t stand round saying that. Everybody tunes 
 up in that chorus. If I sing at all, it 11 be a solo. I 
 don t know what they 11 do; but I know what I shall, 
 and where my part comes in. I mean to ask them to 
 come to Stillwick, chandelier-drops and all." 
 
 Estabel s soberness flashed into sudden delight ; her 
 reluctant word of acquiescence into an acclamation of
 
 AUNT ESTHER S SOLO. 337 
 
 "Why, Aunt Esther! That s the brightest thing 
 - the very sweetest the sublimest thing that any 
 body ever thought of! How did it come into your 
 head ? I know, " flying at and squeezing her comely 
 proportions in a strong young embrace, "right from 
 your great, big, pretending - to - be - inaccessible Mont 
 Blanc of a heart ! " 
 
 "Chooty-choo! No such thing. It s only common 
 sense. It s the best thing all round, that s all. I m 
 only buttering my own bread. I m a speculator. It s 
 in the air of Topthorpe, and I ve caught it. But I 
 wish my house was." She was reverting, regardless 
 of verbal connection, to the comparison with Mont 
 Blanc. "I believe it s generally the folks that have 
 the little houses that come across the most to fill em 
 up with. And folks that come across the most well, 
 there might be ways, after all, " she broke away vaguely, 
 failing to grasp with her usual precision the elements 
 of her own peculiar style of transposition. "If they 
 turn out to be necessary, that is. Things come round 
 to match, once in a while, and I might feel it consistent 
 to add on a piece. Mr. Henslee says the railroad s 
 coming round our way, along the river from Peaceport; 
 and they ll want some of our land yours and mine; 
 that long heater-piece beyond the old woods and the 
 gravel bank. They ll want our gravel, too; lays right 
 to their hand. They 11 give us eighteen hundred dol 
 lars. And all the land round there will be coming up 
 in price. The depot 11 be at the little upper village 
 by the bridge. It 11 build out right and left. Not 
 that I want to sell in any hurry. But it 11 be yours 
 some time, and I m glad of that. We 11 keep the old 
 woods, and the old comfort a while." 
 
 There was something very nice in being talked to so 
 by Aunt Esther. It conveyed to Estabel that excellent 
 relative s own impression of her, that she was now 
 grown up into the sympathies and confidence of her
 
 338 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 elders, as beginning to be one with them. It was that, 
 and not the dignity. 
 
 Everything was full of comfort suddenly. "It seems 
 as if the woods, and the brook, and the river, and the 
 birds might make up, " she said to herself, thinking 
 cheerily of Lilian and the Gladmother. "And the 
 rainbows can come, too. Aunt Esther understands." 
 
 Mrs. Trubin met them precisely on that ground, and 
 with the very words they had anticipated, when they 
 talked of it with her putting very gently, tentatively, 
 the compensations of the offered plan : country air and 
 sunshine and quiet sweetness grass, great trees, wide 
 open mornings, unbroken sunset splendors and deep 
 calms of night for the old wontedness that must be 
 given up. Would she exchange? Wouldn t she be 
 willing? Wouldn t it be even more of the best that 
 had made it as to the outside so pleasant here ? 
 More to which to join the sweetest of the home feeling? 
 That was n t in the walls. 
 
 "No," said the Gladmother. "It never is. It 
 isn t the place, but what is in the place and what 
 reaches down into it that makes it dear. We can 
 take all our rainbows with us. The light s everywhere, 
 and home s everywhere. When we move, we move the 
 whole of us whether we change houses or worlds. 
 We only leave the shell. We don t grow to that. 
 I m not troubled. There s always a place prepared." 
 
 She folded her hands and smiled. 
 
 With Lilian, Miss Charlock had approached the sub 
 ject on its practical side, which she knew must be made 
 quite clear to her. 
 
 " Had you thought of anything ? " she asked her. 
 "Anything to do, I mean, if you stayed here? " 
 
 "I thought that perhaps I could make bonnets." 
 
 "Well, you and I thought alike. I know you could. 
 That s just what I want of you. I 11 tell you the 
 honest truth. That straw bonnet of yours, when I saw
 
 AUNT ESTHER S SOLO. 839 
 
 it Sunday, with the green loops, and the lilies of the 
 valley standing up amongst them as if they d grown so, 
 settled my mind about that part of it, if it was Sun 
 day, and a house of mourning. You can t help seeing 
 things, if you re ever so sorry. I want you to come 
 to Stillwick, and make bonnets with me. It 11 be an 
 independent income. It s all for the main chance 
 with me, as much as you. I m looking out for number 
 one." Aunt Esther had to impress this view of the 
 case very strongly, to justify her own common sense, as 
 well as to persuade the nice sense of obligation in her 
 hearer. "You 11 bring newness. You ll have a live 
 idea for every separate thing. And you 11 bring cus 
 tom. Custom likes to go a little out of the wa\y, some 
 times, when it can discover something all for itself. 
 You ll do more in Stillwick once you begin in a 
 single year, than you could do on Marlington Street 
 in ten. Peaceport has found out, already, and Top- 
 thorpe will. There s going to be a railroad. It all 
 bears down to one point. Don t you think you and 
 your grandmother could make up your minds to be 
 contented in Stillwick ? " 
 
 " Dear Miss Charlock ! We must make up our minds 
 to leave here ; and I think that Stillwick where you 
 live is just next door to heaven. " 
 
 "No, it ain t. It s next door to a very common 
 family. Only, there s always two sides; and the 
 other way, with a beautiful mile of woods between 
 is the Henslee Place. The nearest isn t always next, 
 and you mayn t always be next to what you re near 
 est."
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT. 
 
 THE next fortnight in Casino Crescent was really a 
 very happy time. It was a transfer of the best that 
 had come into Estabel s recent life to a yet more con 
 genial surrounding. It was one of the Gladmother s 
 "moves" the moves onward which are ordered and 
 signified; in making which we take "the whole of us." 
 
 Aunt Esther went back to Stillwick on the Wednes 
 day, but she was in Topthorpe again twice before school 
 broke up and the Clymers sailed. Cousin Lucy craved 
 her company, and much of her sound, encouraging 
 advice. 
 
 Things were greatly altered for Miss Henslee, and 
 plans were proposed that seemed so natural and fitting 
 to immediate requirement and inclination, that she was 
 only the more anxious to look well into all their bear 
 ings, and on into farther results, before consenting to 
 present pleasantness and relief. That was Cousin Lucy s 
 way, to try to see all round, and before and after. 
 
 "You can t," Miss Charlock told her. "Your eyes 
 can only take in just so far, and just so deep, and 
 right straight along. They ain t telescopes, nor micro 
 scopes; nor, more than all, they ain t set in the back 
 of your head. They re only meant for a piece at a 
 time, and to see it plain." 
 
 Which greatly supported the gentle lady in her lean 
 ing to the ready, easy decision. It was settled that 
 the brother and sister, with Harry, of course, belong 
 ing almost equally to both of them, should make their
 
 EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT. 341 
 
 summer home together at the Old Place, and spend the 
 winters, in like manner, here in Topthorpe. 
 
 "It will throw the young people a good deal to 
 gether, " said Miss Lucy, scrupulous to leave nothing 
 unsuggested that should be thought of. 
 
 "Best possible arrangement," returned Mr. Henslee 
 explicitly. "Propinquity doesn t work all one way. 
 Unsuitableness is as quick to find itself out as the other 
 thing. All else being equal, let there be thorough 
 opportunity, and ample time for the most complete un 
 derstanding. " 
 
 Miss Charlock said the same in effect differently. 
 
 "Shaking together won t make contrary ingrejients 
 mix; and you can t mix contraries by shaking em to 
 gether. The more chance you give folks, the more 
 they 11 settle it for themselves." 
 
 From which bit of conversation it appeared that no 
 thing in the family plan was risked blindly by the con 
 trolling powers ; as plainly, also, that nothing in the 
 ordinary possible contingency was to be dreaded. 
 
 No word of this had ever been breathed among them 
 before ; but in the converging of circumstance that 
 which had lain latent in mind or event came thus far 
 forth and was to this extent recognized. 
 
 Curiously, however, it occurred to none of them just 
 now that more than two elements might be concerned 
 in their experiment. 
 
 Harry was jubilant. Estabel was full of the happiest 
 content. How beautifully everything was coming to 
 gether! She reproached herself, indeed, with being too 
 glad when kind Aunt Vera was going away. She not 
 only went, as in duty bound after the semi-apology, to 
 the house in Mount Street, ignoring impediment with 
 a simple grace of generous tact, but she spared many 
 busy hours there to help Aunt Vera, hearing her plans, 
 and telling her of the Henslees delightful arrangements, 
 and of the happy summer she expected. Of the Hawtrees
 
 342 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 she did not say much; she let the fact speak, that her 
 happy time was to be largely so in making these simple 
 friends glad likewise. 
 
 Mrs. Clymer saw excellent opportunity unfolding. 
 Safe in Stillwick, with the Henslees at the Old Place, 
 a summer might do much. She had a comfortable feel 
 ing of having played into the hands of Providence. 
 
 The evenings of these days in Casino Crescent were 
 the nicest part of all. Dr. North had been asked to 
 drop in, and although it was rather a long drop over 
 from West Yarrow Street, he came. Mr. Henslee had 
 found him thoroughly likable, and held out to him a 
 cordially friendly hand. Ulick had a certain flickering 
 doubt of his own wisdom, but justified it in saying to 
 himself that a man wasn t an ostrich; it was always 
 best to see things as they were, and behave accordingly. 
 He had great faith in his own strength to beat away 
 whatever might in any sort threaten his manly freedom. 
 Perhaps his secret instinct at this time was to test him 
 self ; to prove to himself how free, thus far, he really 
 was. It would be an absurdity to allow that there was 
 any reason for him not to go to the Crescent, and to 
 see Estabel there a few times before their meetings 
 should be all ended. He acknowledged to himself, as 
 he had done from the beginning, that he was interested 
 in the child; in her way of looking at things. It was 
 new to find a new mind, unbent to social prejudice ; but 
 he still questioned and he still chose to believe it the 
 mainspring of his interest how far the drift of a few 
 years more living would change her point of view. 
 
 Just now she was very eager to get a more direct 
 light upon an order of things in which it seemed to her 
 there was such unfairness, such an inequality of benefit 
 where many were endeavoring together to one end, one 
 man having simply to put his hand in his pocket for 
 the multiplying Fortunatus coin, and with that control 
 the whole, so that back into his pocket again flowed the
 
 EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT. 343 
 
 unfailing increase, while the execution of all plan, the 
 carrying into effect by skill and industry, was paid for 
 with as little as possible, and as if with a grudge. "I 
 should think everybody ought to make money, that 
 helps," she said, "whether they put in money, or 
 brains, or the wise-hearted work, like the Children of 
 Israel. " 
 
 " Estabel always goes back as far as Exodus, " said 
 Harry, laughing. 
 
 "Don t we have to for the Commandments?" she 
 demanded, and then they both laughed, as if they had 
 a certain pleasure in their little oppositions, which 
 might be less differences than understandings. 
 
 Dr. North quietly noted this, and drew this infer 
 ence ; it was part of his investigation. 
 
 "Money earns money," said Mr. Henslee. "That s 
 the vital principle of finance. The able financier is the 
 man who makes it make the most." 
 
 "It doesn t seem as if it ought to get to be such 
 a separate and overbearing thing," said Estabel. "I 
 think work is really the first thing, and ought to be 
 paid first and best, if there is any difference." 
 
 " Somebody has worked to get the money ; then he 
 turns round and works with that, and the larger pay 
 comes in with the larger power. It can t be helped. 
 Money is motive force ; then there has to be raw mate 
 rial, and machinery, and practical management, and 
 skilled and common labor, all of which money com 
 mands. It is a great complication, and there are ne 
 cessarily some hitches in all human affairs. Everything 
 doesn t always fall together or turn out as was ex 
 pected, and every man isn t a right-angled, equilateral 
 demonstration of conscience and judgment. Things 
 have to shake down into such system as they can, and 
 people must do the best they can in the conditions. 
 The world might be better than it is, but it can t come 
 all at once."
 
 344 SQUAKE PEGS. 
 
 "What is a right-angled equilateral? " asked Harry 
 mischievously, thinking of triangles. 
 
 " Why, a square, of course, " interposed Estabel, 
 while Mr. Henslee, tripped suddenly hy the imputed 
 trip, said nothing. 
 
 "Thank you, Estabel. Harry, you had better rub 
 up your geometry." 
 
 "Very nearly caught you, for all that," said Harry, 
 dexterously turning the tables to his own recovery. 
 
 Estabel was not heeding any further. She had spoken 
 with mechanical literalness. Her mind was busy with 
 the first point in Mr. Henslee s proposition, the axiom 
 with which his argument had started. She sat silent, 
 thinking it over. 
 
 "Money earns money. Money is worth money." 
 She supposed it was ; she perceived that it did ; but 
 when people had enough besides and yet, there came 
 in the second link of the chain of reason. How did 
 they get the "besides," but by the working of this very 
 rule ? Earn a little and make that earn more. Then 
 double it up again. 
 
 She knew that was the way her Uncle Clymer had 
 done, coming up from moderate, slow beginnings ; that 
 was all right ; she could see no flaw in the line of 
 process. But at the point of enough there arose an 
 other and the real question, that she could not settle. 
 The whole struggle of the world is to settle that, and 
 it has never done it yet. 
 
 When Estabel did speak, it was to say a very simple 
 thing. 
 
 "I suppose if the men at the top the money end 
 of the line didn t want so much, there would be 
 more to go all the way down." 
 
 The three gentlemen laughed, and the other two 
 women looked up. 
 
 "That hits it," said Mr. Henslee. "That touches 
 the mainspring. If you can persuade the men at the
 
 EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT. 345 
 
 top, Estabel, you will have solved the whole puzzle of 
 political economy." 
 
 "If they never are persuaded, won t things grow 
 worse and worse? Won t money pile up until a few 
 people have everything, and run the whole world their 
 own way ? " 
 
 "That s the tendency. But to every strong ten 
 dency there is a reactionary force. Here and there, 
 things are always righting themselves. Business crashes 
 come, the cards are more or less shuffled, and there s a 
 new deal." 
 
 " Is it a good plan to depend on crashes ? " 
 
 Dr. North laughed. " Apres nous, le deluge, " he 
 quoted. 
 
 "That s horrid!" exclaimed Estabel, with quick 
 comprehension 
 
 "Nobody wants to be first to take down his bit of 
 dam and empty his own little millpond. And dams 
 there have to be, power concentrated to carry out use." 
 
 Mr. Henslee concentrated his phrasing, with his new 
 illustration; it served him suitably. 
 
 "They let down gates, don t they, when the river s 
 very high? " asked Estabel. "They don t want all the 
 water in their own mills." 
 
 "Metaphors always come to an end," said Mr. Hens- 
 lee, much amused. "And sometimes they work round 
 to the opposite illustration. There is some check pro 
 vided against any excess, as I said before." 
 
 "You said crashes. Wouldn t it be better to 
 regulate beforehand ? If everybody would stop when 
 they had got enough, and let somebody else have the 
 good of the too much. That was what / said before." 
 Estabel spoke very demurely and softly, but as quite 
 surely and clearly, on her own part, returning to her 
 point. 
 
 "We live in Topthorpe. And Topthorpe stand 
 ing pretty fairly for all the other thorpes isn t ready
 
 346 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 to be decapitated. There are too many heads for one 
 axe. You couldn t persuade or convince all the 
 men at the top, Estabel." 
 
 " Somebody will have to begin," she pursued, thought 
 fully. "Maybe a good many that we don t know of 
 are beginning, after all; and that s why only a few 
 people are frightfully rich. I don t think it ought to 
 be so much credit to anybody to have heaps of money. 
 It would be better to have a rule of give-away, like 
 that game of cards, Harry, we played the other night, 
 when every trick you took beyond an average counted 
 one against you." 
 
 "Such a game as that suits the poor hands best," 
 Harry remarked. 
 
 "Of course, they get out of it the easiest. But the 
 cleverness the satisfaction the thing we play for 
 is to work off the big cards so as not to be left with 
 too many in our own pile." 
 
 Again there was a general laugh. "Utopia! " ex 
 claimed Mr. Henslee. 
 
 " It ought to have been Utopia by this time, I think, " 
 Estabel replied to that ; " if they had begun when they 
 were first told about the two coats, and when they were 
 shown how the seven loaves were enough to go round." 
 
 Nobody laughed then, or answered. "You certainly 
 have the last word, now, " said Dr. North. His eyes 
 smiled upon her and he spoke gently. 
 
 "No. It was the first. And I don t see how there 
 can be two different rules about it, or how it should be 
 a law that water should find its own level, and money 
 not." 
 
 "Wait till the money floods up your way," sug 
 gested Harry Henslee. 
 
 "I suppose I had better," Estabel acquiesced ingen 
 uously. And the merry mockery in Harry s face gave 
 place to a flash of proud pleasure. 
 
 "In the meantime, we ll play checkers," he said.
 
 EVENINGS IN CASINO CRESCENT. 347 
 
 "And it shall be gobble-up or give-away, whichever 
 you like best." 
 
 He brought the pretty inlaid table with its squares of 
 ebony and pearl, and Dr. North got up and took his 
 leave.
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE. 
 
 WE live in episodes. Life is a story, with sequel 
 after sequel. But as each volume closes, we say 
 "Finis," and think it is all told. We come to a cli 
 max, and the "ever after " takes its color and is summed 
 up as inclusive consequence. 
 
 The young do this, especially. "The thoughts of 
 youth are long, long thoughts ; " but it is most apt to 
 be so in mere extension of the present. Now is long; 
 it projects itself into the future. Immediate surround 
 ing seems almost impossible of break; it is the final 
 solution of all preceding breaks and changes. Also, 
 the now is deep ; that way the young thought measures 
 it with a long sounding line. It grasps a more interior, 
 vital meaning than older earthly experience often can, 
 in all that arrives to and affects it. Everything is in 
 tense with significance, quick with an instinct of per 
 petuity. "Your heart shall live forever;" youth be 
 lieves it, and identifies its heart with present feeling 
 and circumstance, making these eternal. 
 
 With Estabel everything seemed to have "turned 
 out." They were all back in Stillwick; back there, 
 having brought with them the gain of the absence and 
 interruption. Her happy feeling about it found gleeful 
 expression in the old rhyme she sang, as she moved 
 briskly about Aunt Esther s rooms in the mornings, 
 with duster and brush ; not so much removing that 
 which was scarcely suffered to rest or gather, as, accord-
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE. 349 
 
 ing to her own way of stating, "putting the polish on 
 to things." 
 
 "I hate to dust real dust," she said; "but when 
 there is n t any, it s so pleasant to feel it over and 
 make sure. " 
 
 So she went around, smiling and humming, and every 
 now and then breaking out into the words of "Little 
 Bo-Peep." 
 
 " She lost her sheep, 
 And did n t know where to find em ; 
 So she let em alone, and they all came home, 
 And brought their tails behind em ! " 
 
 The mornings lengthened toward midsummer. The 
 sun grew hot upon the pastures ; the woods were fra 
 grant, the birds sang softly in their home content ; it 
 was so sweet and quiet in garden and orchard that the 
 sounds of pick and hammer and the clank of iron a 
 quarter of a mile away over the gravel ledge, where the 
 railroad was being leveled and laid, only touched upon 
 the margin of an undisturbed peace and accentuated it. 
 
 The Gladmother, in the two rooms that had been 
 given her those on the westerly side, of which the 
 front one, that had been Estabel s, served her as a sit 
 ting-room, either being by itself too small for all her 
 use and very constant occupation was blessedly at 
 home. 
 
 The two young girls had the two corresponding oppo 
 site chambers, and Aunt Esther established herself 
 cheerfully in the bedroom behind the shop, "handy to 
 housekeeping and trade, " which she had only not occu 
 pied regularly before because she would not leave Es- 
 tabel alone upstairs. As to further need, there was 
 none. Since business and family had both enlarged, 
 Miss Charlock had employed a woman of the village to 
 come in for day service ; resident assistance she would 
 not have. "I should not feel as if my home was my 
 own, " she said.
 
 350 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 So the broad, low roof of the little cottage covered 
 them all in to a happy comfort, and there was no fur 
 ther immediate talk of "building on." 
 
 "They d better see at first start that they can be 
 here as well as not," Aunt Esther told Estabel. "Af 
 terward we can have whatever we all take a notion to 
 that s consistent." 
 
 The Gladmother s dormer window, as the sun came 
 round southward, took in the sifted, flickering shafts 
 of light that shot through the changing spaces of the 
 waving elm boughs, and flashed them into separated, 
 dancing jewel rays through the dear refracting crystals, 
 hung in the little alcove, that with its raised dais gave 
 pleasant access for the dooryard outlook. 
 
 At the west side a gable window of comfortable di 
 mension, whose blinds were thrown wide all the morn 
 ing, and in the afternoon bowed out with primitive de 
 vice of hook and staple, opened toward the field and 
 garden intervals between the few near houses, and the 
 farther bend of the roadway where it came round upon 
 the bridge. Held in this loop of highway, and sloping 
 to the river, clustered the green trees and mounds and 
 white stones of the old Stillwick graveyard. The morn 
 ing light lay beautiful upon them always, and at even 
 ing the rich sunset glow slanted through the boughs of 
 fir and willow, and showed in far, clear spaces like 
 calm lakes of heaven. 
 
 "The shining and the life are everywhere! They 
 can t be got away from. There was never anybody 
 dead ! " 
 
 Lilian said it out of her own fresh joy, phrasing 
 from her clairvoyant spirit that to which in the Glad- 
 mother s eyes it answered as she came into the room 
 one still but buoyant-breathing morning with her usual 
 loving inquiry and offered service, and found the gentle 
 dame already dressed and sitting in her armchair by 
 the open sash.
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE. 351 
 
 The girl had followed with quick glance the happy 
 look, and overtook it where it rested upon the bright- 
 bathed, white-gleaming groups of simple headstones that 
 marked the places where they who through generations 
 had peopled the busy, growing little town were gathered 
 children to fathers, fathers to children in one 
 small, gree^ field. 
 
 Yes ; the shining and the life were there also ; the 
 birds nested and sang in the safe inclosure ; the grass 
 waved, and the daisies bloomed ; it was not a desert of 
 the dead ; death can nowhere assert itself ; it is swal 
 lowed up in the victory of endless being. 
 
 White stones in the field for name and for remem 
 brance, here ; elsewhere, in the heart of the life whose 
 great pulse beats out to the farthest reach of its gift 
 in humblest initial form the small white stone of the 
 new name, and the new nourishing of the hidden manna. 
 
 " The glory of the Lord comes by the way of the 
 East, " said the lovely old lady. "But it spreads 
 away over. I don t mind not having an east window; 
 I like to look along the path of the sunrise, and see the 
 lighting up. It all comes in here later, one side after 
 the other, and makes the place splendid. But this is 
 the beginning, so sweet and fresh and gentle. It is the 
 waking up of the world ; the promise that is new every 
 day; the resurrection that goes round and round. He 
 turneth the shadow of death into the morning. No ; 
 there isn t anybody dead. Not anybody has been put 
 away out of it. They have only gone further into the 
 glory; they are all awake, and they walk in the light 
 of the living. Surely, goodness and mercy shall fol 
 low us all the days of our life, and we shall dwell in 
 the house of the Lord forever. They are such com 
 pany for me, Lilian those people who have lived 
 round here, and who are alive, more than they ever 
 were. They tell me wonderful things. I never knew 
 one of them, and yet I feel as if I knew them all."
 
 352 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "And now you must have your breakfast," Lilian 
 said. "And, oh, Gladmother! I ve such a beautiful 
 thought for a bonnet ! " 
 
 "That, too, comes of the morning," answered the 
 Gladmother with a smile. There was no forced transition 
 for her, no incongruousness, either way. Nobody had 
 ever to make solemn gap between words of world and 
 other world for her. It was all one. She had promise 
 of the now is, and of the is to come. It was all come. 
 It was the kingdom at hand. That was her gospel. 
 
 So by and by Lilian brought up her pretty work, and 
 sat with her while she finished it. 
 
 It was a bonnet of white chip. Inside the brim, 
 which poked a little, was a narrow shirring of pale 
 green crape, of which the frill behind was also made, 
 with lining to each of fair, glistening silk. On the 
 top, outside, between crown and brim, lay two half 
 blown water lilies, resting among dark green pads that 
 spread either way, lifting their curled edges that showed 
 under sides of rose color. And from among them 
 dropped the long ovals of smooth buds, just betraying 
 a line of white between pink lips. The stems were 
 coiled around the crown, and gathered at the back with 
 a knot of satin ribbon, dark like the lily pads, blending 
 and contrasting at once with the pale shimmer of the 
 silk and crape. 
 
 " That is instead of the Alsatian bow, " said Lilian, 
 touching the graceful top-cluster with a little air of tri 
 umph. "It has the mechanical effect, and it means 
 a great deal more." 
 
 " Do your customers appreciate ? " asked the Glad- 
 mother. 
 
 "Why, yes approximately. This has been spoken 
 for already. It is for Miss Julia Thornil. She was 
 here just now, before I came up. She wanted something 
 cool and fresh for a garden party. I showed her what 
 I was doing and had planned, and she was enchanted.
 
 MORNING SUNSHINE. 353 
 
 Really, it does just suit her, with her creamy-pale com 
 plexion and her sunny-colored hair. Don t make one 
 for anybody else, she said." 
 
 " And did you promise that ? " 
 
 "Why, yes," said Lilian again, turning the bonnet 
 on her little fist, and looking at it all about with de 
 mure satisfaction. "I told her that I never made two 
 things alike ; I tried to have a new idea for everybody, 
 or else people wouldn t have any pleasure in admiring 
 each other." 
 
 The Gladmother laughed. "Did she appreciate 
 that ? " 
 
 "I don t know. She only said she should think the 
 ideas would give out sometimes. I told her, no, the 
 world was full of them ; and then I showed her what I 
 had done for Dolly Payne, all in a drift of white, with 
 white ribbons, and a bunch of rosy arbutus peeping up 
 from out of the snow." 
 
 "You little witch ! And then what ? " 
 
 "She stared, and screamed. And presently she asked 
 me if the pond lilies didn t look rather big and coarse 
 in comparison. Well, if you compare, I said ; but 
 you see we never think of that when pond lilies come; 
 they each have their place and turn. I didn t tell 
 her that Dolly Payne was just as dainty and delicate, 
 contrasted with her, as the mayflower is with the lilies. 
 I don t think she would have understood how they could 
 both be beautiful in their way, though they don t grow 
 alike or together. I wish people would just take their 
 selves as they are given to them, and be glad that there 
 are other selves to finish out the lovely possibles. Glad- 
 mother! I m going to make and paint some autumn 
 leaves and some holly for Christmas, and snowdrops 
 and buttercups for next spring, and poppies and sweet 
 peas for summer, and don t tell anybody! some hops 
 and some potato blossoms ! Do you know what a pretty 
 pale lavender and gold they are ? "
 
 CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 MISSING. 
 
 THERE were only two discontents and one of these 
 was but an uncontent in those beautiful first summer 
 months at Stillwick. 
 
 Harry Henslee, who with his father spent all his 
 Sundays and holidays these last including three weeks 
 of vacation as he might choose to take them at Hens- 
 lee Place, and to whom the woodland path between that 
 and the little village house was but an easy and most 
 perfect link joining the two homes in the completeness 
 and privileged isolation of one found everything de 
 lightful save a single only circumstance, against which 
 he openly and resentfully rebelled. 
 
 Why should Lilian Hawtree make bonnets ? 
 
 Why should all Peaceport and half of Topthorpe be 
 hearing of her as the inspired little milliner, and de 
 manding her inspirations for their dollars ? Why should 
 they take careless credit for having found her out, and 
 ask each other, as the last little knowing password of 
 an exclusive fashion, " Have you got a Hawtree ? " 
 
 "It is detestable," he told Estabel. 
 
 "Why? Any more than if it were a Hawtree pic 
 ture or a sculpture ? " 
 
 "Because they put it on their heads, and admire 
 their own taste and cleverness and setting off. Because 
 they think they patronize her, and distinguish them 
 selves, and that all she does it for is the money. Be 
 cause she wasn t made for that sort of thing. I wish 
 you d put a stop to it."
 
 MISSING. 355 
 
 "You know I can t. It s all between her and Aunt 
 Esther. And it makes Lilian happy; and I think it 
 is really beautiful. Don t be a snob, Harry." 
 
 "It isn t being a snob not to want her to pander to 
 snobbery." 
 
 "She doesn t." And then Estabel told him of 
 Lilian s answer to Miss Thornil; and she quoted George 
 Herbert. "Whatever she does, Harry, she makes 
 that and the action fine. 
 
 "I d rather she d sweep rooms, though. She could 
 keep that more to herself. " 
 
 "She doesn t want to keep anything to herself. 
 That s the fineness. And I don t see what it is to 
 you, Harry." 
 
 "Of course not. If it were at all my business, I 
 should prevent it. That s why I have to ask you." 
 
 The uncontent was Estabel s. 
 
 In her "ever after" there was still something want 
 ing, though she paused in the immediate content, and 
 perhaps knew not how to analyze it thoroughly, or to 
 detect the insufficiency. 
 
 She missed something, not precisely conscious how 
 much, or through what most vital need of her nature : 
 a keen, direct, uncompromising judgment, external to 
 her own, by which she had learned to measure herself, 
 and things about her; a criticism, a difficult but pos 
 sible approval, to which she involuntarily looked, out 
 of which, even though sometimes against her will, she 
 made motive ; a presence that stimulated her, that she 
 at once welcomed, stood on her defense before, honored, 
 and feared. 
 
 Dr. North never came to Stillwick. Of course, he 
 could not leave his patients. His life was there in 
 Topthorpe; summer and winter he went its round. 
 Mr. Henslee had asked him to give himself a half holi 
 day now and then, and run down to the Place. But 
 the Place was off the track. It involved a drive from
 
 356 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Peaceport, and a sending him back to his return train, 
 as had been offered. All this trouble it was not like 
 Ulick North to take or give. And why should he come 
 to Henslee Place ? What was likely to be going on 
 there that he could meddle with? His business, he 
 thought, was to stay away. 
 
 Yet he, too, missed something that he had grown 
 accustomed to, and that he did not like to accuse him 
 self of missing. He said to himself that it all meant 
 only broken habit. A man who has a routine, whose 
 variations are but a side groove or two, feels uncomfort 
 ably an interruption or a shunting off. He has to take 
 the pains of initiating some new opening or construc 
 tion, or subside into a lessened round and order. This 
 last was what Dr. North was doing. 
 
 The summer time made matters worse. "Summer 
 was always dull, " he said in accounting to himself. 
 There were no oratorios ; there was no acting that was 
 worth while. Artists, singers, preachers even every 
 body all were off, resting, pleasuring. A poor doctor 
 must just stick by. People were dying all the same ; 
 their souls might wait for saving, but their bodies 
 could n t. 
 
 So he would take a stretch across Old Park, or walk 
 down Clover Street to see the sunset across the river, 
 and then back to his little rooms and a smoke. In 
 these processes place was made for all the more query 
 ing and thinking. They tell us of unconscious cerebra 
 tion. There are other organs or forces that bodily 
 organs typify that work in secret and develop their 
 results. All at once, when we think we have been idle 
 or asleep, we wake and spring, to confront them full- 
 formed and grown. 
 
 A thought occurred to our doctor one day, which 
 suddenly reversed his mental attitude. He had been 
 making it his business to stay away from Stillwick, as 
 if against some hidden suspicion of himself of which he
 
 MISSING. 357 
 
 would not face conviction ; which he would disprove, 
 rather, by a sort of negative evidence. Now, strolling 
 slowly, thoughtfully, down Clover Street as the evening 
 deepened after a hot, weary day, he came to the corner 
 where he had found Estabel that day the carpenter had 
 died. 
 
 He looked over to the windows she had watched. 
 Gay curtains of turkey-red and cheap lace-muslin filled 
 the casements where the ferns had been, and stirred in 
 the slow air that drifted through the open sashes. A 
 piano tinkled vulgarly. 
 
 And then the sudden thought struck him that shifted 
 his point of view. Ought he not, at least once, have 
 gone to Stillwick to learn how it fared with the good 
 old lady, his friend and patient ? What could it mat 
 ter, as to that, who else was there or what might be 
 going on in the pleasant country life that young and 
 old, so closely conjoined in their companionship, might 
 there be living? 
 
 The negative needed proving on the other side. 
 
 Was he afraid of going and finding out ? 
 
 He stopped under a street lamp, and pulled out his 
 watch, as if it would tell him at what next hour a train 
 would serve for Peaceport. 
 
 "To-morrow afternoon will do," he said, as he put it 
 back ajrain.
 
 CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 FATHER AND SON. 
 
 THE next day was Saturday. 
 
 The counting-house was to he closed early. It was, 
 after a few busy forenoon hours, a leisure day for Mr. 
 Henslee, and Harry shared its privilege. He shared 
 most things with his father now. 
 
 For the last year, or nearly so, he had had a desk in 
 that inner office where the elder Harrison Henslee had 
 sat so many years alone, transacting the great business 
 which had made his single name so strong. 
 
 The young man s apprenticeship with Blunt and 
 Sterne was over. In October he would be twenty-one, 
 and then the firm style here was to be changed to 
 "Henslee and Henslee." The head of the house would 
 not have it "Henslee and Son." The "son "/was the 
 private, personal, dear relationship. Before the world 
 he wished his boy to stand, now that he was a full man, 
 in a man s place, on an absolute level with himself. It 
 should be Henslee and Henslee, until it had to be Har 
 rison Henslee again; and he hoped that afterward there 
 would be another boy who should have been bred up and 
 waited for, in turn, to take place in like manner in the 
 old, honored concern. 
 
 The elder Harrison Henslee was very happy this 
 summer, in his looking forward to that which, so long 
 planned, was now so near. 
 
 They were driving down together, through the sweet 
 woods, and along the sea opens, to an early dinner at 
 Henslee Place. They took the long road round by the 
 north into Stillwick. They went leisurely, as was
 
 FATHER AND SON. 359 
 
 pleasant both for men and beast ; the two in the com 
 fortable low buggy had plenty to say to each other in 
 these long drives. The handsome creature in the shafts 
 had his meditation and enjoyment ; he threw up his 
 head, and dilated his nostrils, taking in his share of the 
 beauty and deliciousness of the way. He was a fine 
 animal, capable of a moderate motion that was yet not 
 lazy; he lifted his feet with clear elasticity, and put 
 them down with vigorous purpose, whether his pace 
 were measured to a slowed or accelerated time. He 
 gave the sense of getting over the ground with unslack- 
 ened intent, even if only on a walk. Behind such a 
 horse, conversation or reflection may be complacently 
 indulged in. 
 
 The ocean breeze swept inland for miles, making its 
 cool fringe to the mantle of heat that lay upon the 
 westward farms and gardens. In this border, up and 
 down, people might travel, even at midday, with a 
 comfort and refreshing keen and sweet. 
 
 " What is the programme for this afternoon ? Down 
 through the woods, as usual, eh ? " asked Mr. Henslee. 
 
 "I believe so," answered Harry. "Estabel and I 
 have agreed to go over the river, to the Big Rocks, to 
 get some early goldenrod that grows in a place we know 
 of in the Farnum pasture. Miss Hawtree wants it for 
 copy." 
 
 I think Harry added this last bit for the sake of 
 absolute frankness, perhaps even with himself. But 
 then, frankness is sometimes the most effectual blind. 
 
 "I asked because I think I must have you back by five. 
 MacLinn is coming over to look at the old shipyard 
 property. I want you to see him. Estabel Charlock 
 is a fine girl, Harry. She shows it in this indepen 
 dent friendship of hers. She is a girl, too, who can 
 carry her independence and compel countenance, if she 
 is only given room for free action. I don t think she 
 was exactly in her own best place in Mount Street."
 
 360 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Perhaps not," Harry answered briefly. It was not 
 precisely on this side of Estabel s character that he 
 could he enthusiastic. Possibly Mr. Henslee touched 
 it on this side purposely to incline it into its finest 
 light. 
 
 And then, as if his brevity might be too marked, 
 Harry added with a good-humored laugh, "Her own 
 best place doesn t seem to be quite easy to find. She s 
 such an awful little radical, you know." 
 
 Was this tentative ? How much of personal interest 
 and question might it mean ? Was her radicalism in 
 Harry s way, possibly or was she in her own light 
 with him because of it? 
 
 "She is pretty apt, though, to be radically right," 
 said Mr. Henslee. 
 
 "That s the worst of it. She can t wait, and she 
 can t tolerate. I m not finding fault with her, though. 
 I should contradict anybody who did. She s high and 
 grand." 
 
 Mr. Henslee could not altogether make him out. It 
 occurred to him that perhaps the boy had not yet made 
 himself out. He knew better than to hurry him. That 
 would probably avail only to make him find himself out 
 wrong. So he merely said, "All that will wear off the 
 intolerance, I mean. The high quality itself will take 
 care of that. I like her, and I feel very sure of her." 
 
 He made a move to change the subject, mentioning 
 MacLinn again. But Harry, rather curiously, followed 
 up the other lead. 
 
 "Yes; we know her, and we like her," he said. 
 "Other people would, perhaps, if she liked them. But 
 she is queer and difficult. She despises society. That 
 doesn t do in Topthorpe, you know." 
 
 He laughed, and gave a side glance at his father, as 
 if covertly solicitous for the effect upon him of these 
 words. 
 
 Again, Mr. Henslee could not be quite certain how
 
 FATHER AND SON. 361 
 
 much, or in what sort and relation, this manner of the 
 boy s might mean. But he returned glance and answer 
 with entire directness. "Her elective instincts are 
 keen," he said. "She will always choose the best, and 
 never be satisfied otherwise. This makes her odd, at 
 first, in her rejections and appropriations ; but I will 
 venture a prophecy that by and by if her life has full 
 chance she will be a head and centre of some very 
 marked social power. " 
 
 "You have thought a good deal about her. I did 
 not know you had noticed her so much." 
 
 Mr. Henslee laughed. "Old folks notice a great 
 deal more and look farther on than young people 
 imagine. We are given to projecting futures for them, 
 and anticipating their probabilities, in the light of our 
 own past. We put ourselves back to a starting-point like 
 theirs, as we see it, and live on with them, as we think 
 they might live on ; perhaps with less allowance for 
 miscarriage than our own mistakes would justify. Your 
 Aunt Lucy is very fond of Estabel ; she would like to 
 claim a good deal of her if other rights did not come 
 first. Now, especially. She wants to have her with 
 us next winter. So I naturally think about her. I ve 
 always missed not having a daughter, Harry." And 
 after a pause, he said, "I only hope that other aunt in 
 Europe won t take it into her flighty head to send for 
 her. I suppose we couldn t make any opposition to 
 that." 
 
 And then Mr. Henslee did turn the conversation with 
 excellent discretion. 
 
 The talk had been unpremeditated ; but unpremedi 
 tated talk, like extemporaneous public speaking, grows 
 out of much that has taken mental shape from pretty 
 thorough preceding consideration. Just the very par 
 ticulars had been touched that Mr. Henslee would have 
 desired should be suggested, and this with an actual 
 spontaneity which he would not invalidate by persistence.
 
 362 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 He spoke energetically of the new business plans. 
 
 " We will build a line of vessels for our South Ameri 
 can trade," he said; "light draught clippers for quick 
 and frequent voyages; no long delays in lightering. 
 We 11 gradually replace our heavier old craft. That s 
 my plan; and MacLinn is the right man for us. I can 
 rely on him, and he knows that my work means his 
 future. He shall take the ship-yard and build for us ; 
 we will have a branch house of our own down there; 
 Fessenden shall go out to represent the firm ; that will 
 make up to him for not being taken in here. He un 
 derstands, of course, that the first place has been kept 
 for you, and yet he deserves promotion, and a share. 
 So that will be all right ; and unless it should inter 
 fere undesirably otherwise I think it might be well 
 for you to go out for one voyage, and get the knowledge 
 of the handling at that end. We shall have a good 
 deal to think of, and to decide, for you for both 
 of us, together this coming year. It will be an im 
 portant time for you in every way. Your life will 
 begin to take permanent shape. Much you must deter 
 mine for yourself, but you may remember that I always 
 stand ready to help you to the best, where it rests at 
 all with me. I should like to see you settled early, 
 Harry." 
 
 All this touched Harry strongly. "Us " "our 
 business " the words expressed such generous pride 
 and joy in sharing, in recognition of his son s manhood 
 and bestowing upon him its rights that an answering 
 joy and pride, with an earnest gratitude, stirred the 
 youth s spirit to the degree of a controlling desire to 
 meet his father s wish in everything. At that moment 
 it seemed to him that he could leave his life to sucli 
 direction and foresight as grew from open-hearted love 
 and wise experience like these. Harry Henslee s nature 
 was one easily moulded to his environment. He was 
 apt, in most things, to take his world as he found it,
 
 FATHER AND SON. 363 
 
 and to find it pretty good. He certainly would never 
 be comfortable in quarreling with it. 
 
 "We 11 have a vessel on the stocks with little delay," 
 said Mr. Henslee. "MacLinn has excellent notions 
 for combining the best speed and capacity, and he will 
 have everything to his hand. Another winter but 
 we won t look ahead as far as that quite yet. Be 
 thinking of a name, Harry. A vessel s name is half 
 her character at the start. It 11 be fine to have a 
 launching at the old place, won t it? We ll break a 
 bottle of the best, boy ! " 
 
 Mr. Henslee shook the reins, and imparted some 
 superfluous impulse to the noble roadster, who shook his 
 mane in response, and launched out on his own part 
 valiantly. 
 
 Harry saw the look in his father s face that it wore 
 when he was happily and proudly stirred. Eyes level- 
 fronted, reaching into distance, luminous with a suf 
 fused moisture which the raised brows seemed lifted to 
 restrain, lips curved and all but tremulous the ambi 
 tion, affection, fulfillment of heart purpose and desire, 
 and the self-containing that kept all within calm, staid 
 limit it was the aspect in which the strength and 
 tenderness of a beautiful manly nature met and were 
 declared. There are looks which reveal more than 
 word or act can demonstrate in years. At such mo 
 ments Harry Henslee comprehended his father, and 
 revered him passionately.
 
 CHAPTER XLIV. 
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 
 
 ONE day Miss Charlock had said to herself, consider 
 ing things over, "Three s an odd number. Especially 
 when it s two unusual nice girls, and one well, ever- 
 age nice young man. I don t know as it ever oc 
 curred to me just so before. I hope to goodness I 
 haven t been making any mistake. I was only think 
 ing about two of em as far forth as they concern 
 each other much; it s time, I guess, to look out a little 
 for number three if I can tell which tis. That s 
 the one that gets left out. Number one takes care of 
 itself, fast enough; and sometimes a person comes by 
 particular circumstances to make a Scripture neighbor 
 of number two ; but well, I never could cleverly mas 
 ter the rule of three and a three-ply carpet always 
 wears out in pockets and chooty-choo ! " She gave 
 her work a flirt, her scissors slid off her lap, and her 
 spool rolled after them, unwinding as it went ; compel 
 ling her to pursuit with many dives and twists under the 
 legs of chairs and table and the hems of her own skirts, 
 before she recovered thread and thought, and wound up 
 and snipped off with, "After all, it s the holy number, 
 and it ought to work right all the way down. Anyway, 
 I 11 go up and visit a little with the Gladmother." 
 
 And it was in this visit, while the odd number of 
 young people were off together in one of their summer 
 rambles, that Aunt Esther had managed to convey to the 
 serene old lady some idea of unspoken family interest
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 365 
 
 and expectation, without, as she complacently reflected, 
 "really saying anything." 
 
 It is the thing left unsaid that works its quiet way. 
 The Gladmother kept Lilian by her side a little more; 
 she managed to let her see in that same shrewd care 
 fulness of not saying with what a gentle kindness she 
 herself perceived some sign of beautiful story weaving 
 in this summer life. 
 
 So Lilian also began, in her young, unsophisticated 
 way, to look on, and to read the fairy tale and to dream 
 the artless dream ; to think how sweet life was, and 
 might be, for those two; for any to whom was given 
 such part in life-unfolding, such share in the wide 
 blessedness that the whole world is made to breathe and 
 tell of. It was the human story of the birds and flow 
 ers ; she was glad in it, as she was in them, imperson 
 ally, forgetting herself. She did not put herself aside, 
 for her self was nowhere. And yet it was in all; "hav 
 ing nothing, and yet possessing all things; " "meek, and 
 so inheriting the earth." Lilian Hawtree was, as 
 Harry Henslee had said of her from his first perception, 
 "a new kind of a girl altogether." 
 
 "It was in good time," the wise Gladmother said to 
 herself. "Now all is true and simple. All will go 
 well." 
 
 It was just as Lilian might have refrained from any 
 common appropriation of that which another might 
 desire or prefer, that she withheld herself, now and 
 then, from enjoyment that the three would naturally, 
 perhaps, have taken together ; she was sometimes busy 
 when they proposed a walk; this also had claim, as well 
 as color, of a duty. She was not here merely for a holi 
 day time ; she had her work. When she put this for 
 ward, Harry frowned and Estabel would often appeal 
 to Aunt Esther. Aunt Esther would say, "Lilian 
 knows what makes her most comfortable. If there 
 looks to be a little bit of an ought one way, there s no
 
 366 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 clear pleasure the other; and there s no satisfaction in 
 going different, when you see a signboard that you 
 think settles your track." 
 
 Yet she would not let Lilian be too conscientious ; 
 the signboards were never of her setting up. For the 
 most part, matters were not conspicuously different 
 from what they had been. This, truly, would not have 
 been expedient. 
 
 It happened on the Saturday in question, when Harry 
 came to the Charlock cottage, with only some two hours, 
 and those of the earlier afternoon, at his command for 
 the expedition, that Lilian was finishing the trimming of 
 a bridal bonnet for the village lady who was to be a cer 
 tain Mr. Job Chirple s third wife; and that afterward 
 she was to read to her grandmother and Miss Esther 
 in one of Miss Austen s stories, whose keenly simple 
 humor and real-life delineations they were enjoying. 
 
 "Always some useless bother! " Harry protested im 
 patiently. "I don t mean the reading; that might 
 come later, and would n t interfere. But the third 
 Mrs. Cut-and-come-again ! How long will it take? 
 Or are you going to begin on the next one ? " 
 
 An outbreak of laughter from the three women sur 
 prised him. He had not thought he had been funny 
 enough or ridiculous enough for that ; and half 
 minded to take fresh offense, he said so. 
 
 "Oh, it isn t you, in the least," explained Estabel. 
 "It is old Miss Minks. She was here just now, and 
 had just met the bridegroom-elect or elective. If 
 you could have heard her account of the conversation ! " 
 
 Estabel transformed herself suddenly into Miss Minks. 
 She drew her upper lip down over her teeth, set her 
 head on one side, laid the palms of her hands across 
 each other, with a little wavy movement up and down, 
 and started off with her recital. 
 
 "Yes m. I ve seen him myself. I ve had a pus nal 
 interview with him. He d druv over to the village,
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 367 
 
 and was gittin out at Babson s store. I hadn t come 
 across him before sense I heard the news, an I im 
 proved the occasion. Well, Brother Chirple, says 
 I, very polite, so I hear you re goin to tackle up in 
 double harness once more. Seems so, says he. 
 Some folks appear to have the luck of it. Speaks 
 well for the women, says I ; an I told him he certainly 
 was perseverin , an I hoped it would last him out this 
 time; twould be terrible discouragin if it wasn t to. 
 And then I observed that he d had quite a checkered 
 experience, marked off toler ble reggler in black and 
 white. Well, Miss Minks, says he, quite solemn an 
 earnest, this ere is jest how it s bin with me. My 
 first there, I did set my very eyes by her. An then 
 my second I liked her, real well, what I seen of her ; 
 but she only lived a year. An now this one she 
 comes well recommended, an I presume she 11 do the 
 best she can. The poor man really seemed to open 
 his mind right out, an I ve come straight here with 
 it, so you may depend it s the whole, clear, honest 
 truth, fust hand." 
 
 "I won t say another word in opposition to Mrs. 
 Chirple-that-is-to-be s bonnet! She ought to have all 
 possible alleviation! " declared Harry, with delighted 
 glee. 
 
 "Miss Minks, we may as well be off." 
 
 They went away, apparently well satisfied, together. 
 
 It pleased Harry to get Estabel "down off her stilts." 
 She was so bright and taking, when she would only 
 condescend. In her amusing, imitative moods, there 
 was no one like her. 
 
 But as the fun evaporated, the indignation reasserted 
 itself. 
 
 "That she should work for such people! Mrs. Job 
 Chirple s wedding rig! " 
 
 "You wouldn t mind if I made a bonnet for Mrs. 
 Job Chirple."
 
 368 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "No. You would do it for the pleasure, and the 
 kindness." 
 
 "So does Lilian." 
 
 "I d rather her pleasure and kindness should n t be 
 paid for by Sal, Sue, and Polly ! " 
 
 "Or by Aunt Esther? Lilian doesn t depend much 
 more directly on millinery than I do." 
 
 "But she expects to keep on with it. She s person 
 ally identified. She never will it s next to impossi 
 ble she should get out of it." 
 
 "Providence fin<?s easy ways out of impossibilities, 
 sometimes. In the meanwhile, she is content and 
 thankful. There s nothing to be ferocious about." 
 
 "Nor provoking." 
 
 "I meant that, too. So please leave off, and be 
 agreeable. There must be something to talk about be 
 sides Job and his latter days." 
 
 As Estabel spoke she crossed the brook at its narrow 
 bend below the orchard. There was one great stone in 
 the middle. Two light, springing steps took her over 
 with elastic, graceful ease ; there had been no slightest 
 need to wait for Harry s help. 
 
 Harry remembered with happy present contrast the 
 reckless plunge and flounder of two years ago. Estabel 
 also thought of it. 
 
 " Place aux dames, toujours ! " cried Harry, alighting 
 beside her from a bold standing jump that ignored the 
 midway point of support. 
 
 "Especially when the messieurs can immediately 
 prove the mereness of the courtesy by superior demon 
 stration." 
 
 How quick and firm she had become in action and in 
 repartee ! He measured her against herself and saw that 
 the brusque, blundering girl had grown into the clever, 
 well-poised woman. If she would always be like this, 
 and only this, like the gay sunshine, piercing with 
 its keen, delicate lances and their kindly quickening
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 369 
 
 into the common, heavy earth of every day, rather than 
 the unsparing axe laid to the root of the trees! 
 
 Perhaps in the friendship of these two girls the best 
 of each had found and modified the other s. There 
 were times when he could hardly discern in either 
 whether Lilian predominated, or Estabel. 
 
 In all this Harry Henslee was neither so utterly igno 
 rant of himself, nor so weakly vacillating, as might 
 appear. 
 
 He knew quite well what he wanted. The more 
 Estabel grew to resemble and repeat Lilian, the better 
 he liked her; if he could have put Lilian, just as she 
 was, into Estabel s circumstance, he would have been 
 completely satisfied. His restless effort was to recon 
 cile the two into something which he could persuade 
 himself was a fully complemented identity. Reversing 
 the old song, he could have been delightfully content 
 with either, had she possessed more of the charm or the 
 condition of the other. As things were, he could not 
 bring himself to wish either out of the comparison ; to 
 gether, they showed him, as by a stereoscopic view, a 
 rounded and completed womanly nature ; an adaptation, 
 also, to a world in which are both externals and verities, 
 but in which they seldom seemed to him to coincide. 
 
 Harry Henslee was at once impulsive and conven 
 tional. And as yet he only perceived in a dim and 
 puzzled way what was so clear to Lilian s and the Glad- 
 mother s single sight, that it is only by a false and 
 arbitrary wrenching apart tfcat the life created one can 
 ever be made a doubleness, and set in irreconcilable 
 separateness and distance. 
 
 Estabel, shrewd and quick-witted, loyal to and jeal 
 ous for Lilian, was sensitively perceptive of this contra- 
 dictoriness in Harry as it touched her friend, and she 
 took up her part accordingly. 
 
 She consented to much monopoly of Harry that she 
 would otherwise have avoided or refused. I think she
 
 370 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 felt as if she were holding a kind of protectorate until 
 such time as a full and true development should place 
 present fluctuating relations on a right and certain basis. 
 Not that she acted as of any special or deliberate plan ; 
 she only discerned by intuition that matters were but 
 in temporary assortment, and must be given time in 
 which to adjust themselves. Possibly she went no fur 
 ther than her desire that Harry should take a right and 
 noble view of Lilian and her position; assuredly .she 
 would not let Lilian herself be sought in intimate 
 friendship, only to be made to feel later that between 
 her and such friendship was the bar of her place and 
 occupation. It did not seem to her fair that Harry 
 should admire and like her only partly, or under any 
 sort of protest ; he must take her altogether and uncon 
 ditionally, to be worthy of her regard at all. 
 
 "There can be no superior demonstration of a thing 
 done perfectly in its own proportion. You know 
 you did that well. " 
 
 There had been no appreciable gap between the sen 
 tences of their light talk. Our analytics represent no 
 space ; they are but the flash upon the unbroken outlines 
 of occurrence. 
 
 "Thank you. I didn t try to do anything at all. 
 It s a good thing to learn not to take your jump until 
 you can virtually feel yourself on the other side. A 
 cat measures a hole by her whiskers. I ve done with 
 plunging for points that I can t reach." 
 
 " Done with hope and ambition ? " 
 
 "I didn t say that. I may get to the top of the 
 hill over there, but it won t be in the next step, nor 
 the next after. I m finding out how fine it is to be 
 content and comfortable along the way." 
 
 "One needn t always take the longest way round, 
 though. " 
 
 "See here, Harry. This brook is bound for the river 
 by and by, after it has taken all its pretty turn
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 371 
 
 through the woods. It doesn t try to run over the 
 ridge, though, right here." 
 
 "You re as sharp and pat as Susan Nipper, with 
 your proverbs and comparisons." 
 
 "There is one particular proverb that I don t think 
 has ever been properly applied, Don t cross your 
 bridge until you come to it. It ought to be, Don t 
 cross your river in a hurry before you come to your 
 bridge. 
 
 "Nor give it up, and go back? " 
 
 "No, indeed. That s a faithless fraternity." 
 
 "Fraternity?" 
 
 "Yes. The other thing that you might do. That s 
 how Miss Minks expresses it. We ve got to turn this 
 way for our bridge, Harry." 
 
 Standing upon it presently, they stopped beside the 
 railing, looking up and down the reaches of the river. 
 
 "It seems a shame," said Estabel, "but I suppose 
 it has to come." 
 
 The pretty natural embankment was all an upturned 
 mass of earth and gravel. Stone sleepers were being 
 laid where the brown footpath had wound along under 
 the hill. A gang of men in red and blue and gray 
 blouses and nondescript trousers were handling the 
 heavy blocks with bar and pick, settling them into their 
 rough parallels. The bushy border of the stream had 
 been hacked away. The water-level was being utilized 
 for human traffic, and the blackbirds and the phebes and 
 the little warblers that hunted in the underbrush had 
 been driven back, bewildered, from the pleasant tangla 
 that had been all their own. 
 
 "Changes always spoil something," Estabel said. 
 "We have to take what they bring, and make the more 
 of what they leave." 
 
 "That s good sound sense," Harry agreed, as they 
 turned to walk up the long pasture rise. "Do you 
 know I m getting awfully proud of you, Estabel? "
 
 372 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Aren t you grateful that your life has been spared 
 long enough ? " 
 
 "More so, I guess, that it hasn t needed to be spared 
 longer. That would have convicted me of stupidity." 
 
 "I wonder what has quickened your intellect so sud 
 denly on that particular point? There there s the 
 goldenrod ! " 
 
 Below a sheltering boulder, full in the warm south 
 sun, stood a lovely clump of the tall, strong stems, 
 each flinging gayly from its tip its yellow gonfalon. 
 
 Estabel sat down upon the dry turf out of which they 
 sprang. Harry stood beside her. "I ve had a good 
 talk with father, to-day, " he said. 
 
 "Did he tell you?" 
 
 "What?" 
 
 "How well I had turned out." 
 
 "What made you think of that? " 
 
 "Weren t you answering my question? I under 
 stood you so. But perhaps it was my grasping vanity." 
 
 "He said better things of you than that. I think he 
 talked more, almost, about you than of the new ves 
 sel." 
 
 "Tell me about the new vessel." 
 
 And then Harry recounted to her all the plans 
 that he knew of; the resuscitation of the old shipbuild 
 ing business at the Henslee yards ; the opening and sys 
 tematizing of a larger, more continuous South American 
 trade ; the tropical voyages, of which, now and then, 
 he might make one, as supercargo and part owner; the 
 partnership ; the fine new craft that was to be designed 
 and built and launched and off before the end of an 
 other year. 
 
 "And we have got to think of a name," he said. 
 His face was all alight with pride and confident expec 
 tation. Life lay before the young fellow, as if he 
 might gather to himself whatever and all he would from 
 the bountiful outstretch of the future.
 
 THE RULE OF THREE. 373 
 
 "I am very glad for you, Harry. I think your 
 father is splendidly generous." 
 
 "He s the grandest old parent since the Father of 
 his country! I d go back to the Patriarchs, but there 
 wasn t one of that lot could hold a candle to him! 
 Now let s think up a name." 
 
 Estabel broke off a stem of the goldenrod, and held 
 up its bright plume. 
 
 "This, " she said. 
 
 Harry pulled off his hat and tossed it in the air. 
 
 "I believe you ve hit it! Don t say it, though. 
 Don t let s try the sound of it till we tell it to him! " 
 
 They gathered the sheaf of flame-touched blossoms, 
 and went down homeward with them like torchbearers 
 in a triumph.
 
 CHAPTER XLV. 
 "WHAT DID HE COME HERE FOR?" 
 
 DR. NORTH, sitting with the Gladmother in her west 
 window behind the bowed blinds, saw the two come 
 diagonally up the slope together, skirting the farther 
 line of the garden. He saw them quicken their steps 
 as they approached the house, as if perceiving some one 
 with a pleased surprise. Mr. Henslee came round by 
 the side way and met them. They all stopped a mo 
 ment full in view, but none of them looked up ; they 
 were all busy with one another. If they had glanced 
 this way, they would scarcely have perceived the doc 
 tor. The slanting blind and his position in the shaded 
 room, a little back from the Gladmother s chair, though 
 giving him a ready outlook, shielded him from any prob 
 able notice. 
 
 Their voices came clearly up through the still air and 
 the open window. 
 
 "I ve just driven over to meet you," Mr. Henslee 
 said to Harry. "The longest way round on wheels 
 
 will be the shortest way home. And MacLinn is 
 sure to be punctual." 
 
 "All right," was Harry s answer. It had a pecul 
 iarly glad ring in it, as if it sounded to the doctor 
 
 other things just then might be opportunely right 
 with him. "I m ready. Just let me tell you that 
 the name is settled if you like it so. Estabel is to 
 be godmother. She wants the vessel called the Golden- 
 rod." 
 
 Estabel stood, happily flushing, between father and
 
 "WHAT DID HE COME HERE FOR?" 375 
 
 son, the great gay bunch of nodding corymbs held be 
 fore her, her eyes lifted with a shy inquiry in them to 
 Mr. Henslee s face. Harry, for his part, wore a proud 
 little tuft of the yellow tips in his buttonhole. 
 
 Was it all about the adoption of the name ? And 
 the name and the long ramble together and the 
 gold-gathering, and the shy, happy look, and the wear 
 ing of a favor did they mean nothing in their con 
 junction ? 
 
 Was Dr. North to blame for the quick thought that 
 other things might have been settled, or be very near 
 it, giving significance of occasion to the choice and 
 sponsorship ? 
 
 He made haste to say some few words to Mrs. 
 Trubin. But she was openly looking and listening, and 
 did not reply. This, and the next words that Mr. 
 Henslee said scarcely helped to weaken the impression. 
 
 "Estabel is apt to choose right," that gentleman 
 was answering, with a pleased smile, and he touched 
 the girl s shoulder caressingly. 
 
 "But do you like it?" she asked, still with that 
 bright, wistful look seeking to his. 
 
 "Thoroughly. It will just exactly do. She shall 
 be launched, if all goes well, within a year from now, 
 and we 11 have her dressed in her own flower, from 
 stem to stern. It s a bright thought, and a happy em 
 blem. Thank you, Estabel. We 11 talk it over, name 
 and all, another time. Now, Harry, we must go." 
 
 Was their present speech double? 
 
 The two men said their cordial good-bys, with a pal 
 pably a rivederci tone, and went away around the house 
 together, to the east dooryard, whence Mr. Henslee had 
 come. Estabel stood still a minute, looking after them. 
 Then she walked a few steps the same way, and came in 
 by the kitchen porch. 
 
 Perhaps it was a pity that Ur. North could not fol 
 low his observation of her further.
 
 376 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Through the open doors and passage, as she entered, 
 she caught sight, suddenly, of that other horse and 
 vehicle waiting at the gate, and at the same instant a 
 voice reached her ears that startled her. 
 
 " Well, " Dr. North was saying, in a prolonged, almost 
 explosive way he had of uttering the word after a silence, 
 "I suppose I ought to he off." 
 
 When Ulick North had most to keep in control or 
 bid back within himself, he was most absolutely com 
 monplace. His deep-breathed "wells " covered often 
 an interval of withholden breathing. Doctors learn to 
 be like that, probably. 
 
 He was on his feet when Estabel came into the room. 
 
 She approached him with glad eyes and outstretched 
 hand. He thought it was the still brimming gladness 
 that had begun from other cause. 
 
 His hand met hers with the old brief, limp touch. 
 Then he turned and made some ordinary and rather 
 irrelevant remark to Mrs. Trubin. He was rude ; he 
 knew it ; but it was his heroic treatment of himself. 
 
 Estabel looked at him with a silent, sad surprise 
 clouding suddenly over the brilliant eyes. Then a 
 different flash shot from them, and she turned away. 
 
 "I will go and put your goldenrod in water," she 
 said to Lilian, who had come in quietly. 
 
 "Why should she pass it over ostentatiously to her? " 
 darted with fresh circumstantial of false evidence 
 through Ulick s mind. He might have detected him 
 self if he had not so done before, by this very grasping 
 of "confirmation strong." "Trifles light as air" con 
 vict reflexively. 
 
 Estabel had left the room. 
 
 The next moment her voice came hurriedly up from 
 below. "Dr. North! Your horse! " she cried. 
 
 She stepped back quickly from the stairfoot as he 
 came springing down. Then, as quickly, she followed 
 him out into the dooryard.
 
 "WHAT DID HE COME HERE FOR?" 377 
 
 The horse had been secured by the tie-rein to a rude 
 tethering-stone that had lain in the grass beside the 
 Charlock gate for years unmoved. It was a fragment 
 of a broken grindstone, apparently, a portion of its 
 original central perforation showing in the irregular 
 outline of the fracture. Into its solid mass a staple 
 had been drilled and a ring fixed. Bedded in the low 
 bank outside the fence, it had seemed aHi immovable as 
 the outcrop of a granite ledge. 
 
 But by some start or restlessness of the animal now 
 made fast to it, it had become dislodged and had rolled 
 down under his feet. The rein was too short ; a fright 
 ened jump dragged the weight from the ground ; it hung 
 by the bit and dangled dangerously against the horse s 
 knees. Naturally, he reared high up ; the stone swung 
 in the air, and vibrated back and forth. A catastrophe 
 was imminent. 
 
 Dr. North made his swift way through the gate and 
 to the horse s farther side. He spoke to him reas 
 suringly; he reached his hand to the bridle and tried 
 to seize it as the creature again and again came down 
 from his upward leaps. But it was wrenched from his 
 hold. 
 
 A girl with a white face stood on the mound made 
 by the old elm roots behind the fence. 
 
 "Turn him this way if you can, Dr. North! " she 
 called clearly but not sharply. And either by Ulick s 
 more successful effort at the moment, and a throwing 
 of his whole force in that direction, his most anxious 
 purpose being to prevent a bolt, or by the horse swerv 
 ing from the resolute restraint, the forelegs did descend 
 upon the slant of turf in alarming nearness to the slight 
 picket rail over which Estabel leaned ; and the ugly 
 bulk of rock dropped once more upon the top of the 
 narrow embankment. Instantly she reached over and 
 held fast upon the tie-rein with both hands, bracing her 
 feet against the big protruding root of the old tree.
 
 378 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Dr. North, in the instant s advantage, secured his own 
 grasp on each side of the bit, and the danger was over. 
 
 Estabel quietly unbuckled the strap from the iron 
 ring. 
 
 " You did that well, " the doctor said to her, as 
 breath and tranquillity returned. 
 
 It was the second time the same words had been said 
 to her that day. Same words sometimes sound very 
 strange. 
 
 "Why didn t you stand still and scream?" asked 
 the doctor, as he patted the horse s nose, and felt the 
 head straps and unhooked the tie-rein from the bit. 
 He made the little mock as one who avoids any giving 
 way to emotional expression. 
 
 Estabel, waiting only for a moment to be certain of 
 controlled movement before making her retreat, took 
 the cue. 
 
 "Are you speaking to the horse? " she inquired non 
 chalantly, "or was that what you expected me to do? 
 Perhaps we might try it all over again, and manage 
 more en regie." And with that she began to walk away 
 toward the house. But her knees trembled, and she had 
 to stop, with a very determined effort to stand firm. 
 
 "Hadn t you better tie him to the fence and come 
 in again ? " she asked to cover her own pause. 
 
 "No. You must say good-by for me. I can t leave 
 him now." 
 
 "Very well; but you can t leave your hat." And 
 now she compelled herself with a strong, swift step, 
 and reached the door. Lilian stood there. 
 
 "You brave, brave thing! " she said. 
 
 "Hush! There s the doctor s hat. Give it to him, 
 please." And up the stairs went Estabel, and into her 
 own room and shut the door. 
 
 She sat down upon her bedside ; she must put herself 
 somewhere, and she would take no prone, vanquished 
 posture.
 
 "WHAT DID HE COME HERE FOR?" 379 
 
 "What did he come here for?" she demanded of 
 herself with stern, unspoken words ; lifting up, as 
 against a challenge, her proud, hot face, overspread 
 with indignation, shame, and the refusal of importunate 
 tears. "To take back all his little bits of kindness? 
 To let me see as if I needed how little he has ever 
 thought of me at all how lie despises me ? " 
 
 Lilian knocked at the door. "Don t you need some 
 thing, dear? Aren t you feeling faint or weak, after 
 it all ? " 
 
 "No, Lil, thank you," came back a quite calm voice. 
 "I m all right. I don t need anything. I m very 
 strong, you know." 
 
 Then she got up, smoothed her rumpled hair, and 
 began to act up to her conviction of herself. 
 
 Dr. North, driving back to Peaceport by the long 
 shore road, faced the assumed fact unflinchingly. 
 
 "She will take the easy way," he said. "They all 
 do. They all wed the Earlie s son if they can 
 get him or the market gardener." And he smiled 
 with a pitiless derision at his own grim Swivellerism. 
 
 Here were two persons, true to severity in nature and 
 habit, dealing untruly with themselves and each other, 
 because acting, not from heart-centre, but from ex 
 ternal phase and impression. It is in the outside of 
 ourselves, and of life, that we make mistakes. Against 
 the vivid, interior light we let down a veil, secrete our 
 selves, and misjudge the neighbor. So we walk in the 
 old "vain shadow, disquieting ourselves in vain." 
 
 The most terrible misplacements and wrenches in 
 human history and relation come not from adverse, 
 inimical plot and crafty machination, but from our own 
 putting of ourselves out of true alignment and poise 
 seeing and moving from false focus and balance. 
 
 And it is they who are most essentially real who 
 suffer most.
 
 CHAPTER XLVI. 
 
 U DR. NORTH IS A FINE MAN." 
 
 "DR. NORTH is a fine man," said the Gladmother. 
 
 With all her other-worldliness, which was really 
 her one-worldliness, and with all her simplicity so 
 utterly clear of guile, she could approach a subject in 
 which she felt a dawning interest or solicitude with as 
 much gradual caution as any wily diplomat. This was 
 of her absolute truth, indeed ; such truth being of a 
 finer discretion than any vulgar cunning knows. Be 
 cause thought and interest were in the dawn with her, 
 she brought her word to bear with a corresponding deli 
 cacy of inquest. Because all was in a twilight of dis 
 closure, she would light no flaring torch to flout the day 
 with coarse anticipation. 
 
 She had no least intent to meddle ; she did not even 
 try to guess how much there was to meddle with. She 
 only saw that something was at work that might at least 
 hinder friendship unfairly ; and such hindrance and un 
 fairness should not be in the way of any right and natural 
 ordering of event or relation. All must have the Lord s 
 free chance ; for she knew that the Divine working waits 
 on human loyalty and willingness. To make a straight 
 path is only to prepare His way. 
 
 Mrs. Trubin and Estabel were sitting together under 
 the canopy of the elms in the little dooryard. The 
 Gladmother loved the pleasant place, and after the sun 
 had turned a little westward and the early dinner was 
 over, she would often sit in the deep basket chair they 
 put there for her, with her feet upon a soft old rug, and
 
 "DR. NORTH IS A FINE MAN." 381 
 
 the green shadows falling about her, while the air was 
 yet warm and rich with lingering midday fervor, and 
 stay until the later cooling of the afternoon. One or 
 both of the girls would keep her company; oftenest it 
 was Estabel, who read to her some pleasant old ro 
 mance or beautiful poem, or asked her questions about 
 real life and its meanings. 
 
 " Every life is a story, " the old lady would say. 
 "That s why I like stories. It seems to me that in 
 the heart- world they read our stories as we read those 
 in books, and live them with us, and know how it is 
 going to be all right with us when we have turned over 
 a few more leaves. And there s a poem-secret in 
 everybody and in everything; that s why I like poetry. 
 It tells the secrets, and leaves us to understand each 
 one our own." 
 
 It was only a few days after Dr. North s visit, and 
 it had been with a little determination that Estabel, 
 finding that it fell to her to-day to keep company with 
 the Gladmother, had followed her with cushions and 
 book, and established herself with her as usual. There 
 was a reminder here that she shrank from, and there 
 fore braved. 
 
 And it was by this reminder that her old friend 
 found it natural to speak. 
 
 The first word was a reference to what had happened 
 that other afternoon ; the torn turf outside the paling 
 still showed traces of the brief, wild struggle ; the 
 mound about the ancient roots which had given Estabel 
 at once her vantage and her peril, was the very one 
 against which she now leaned, sitting upon the warm 
 ground beside the Gladmother s chair. 
 
 "I saw it all, you know, from my front window; 
 and Lilian was in the doorway. It was frightful, for 
 a minute. I don t think either of us breathed, but it 
 was soon bravely over." 
 
 Mrs. Trubin glanced at Estabel s face. Its color
 
 382 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 had changed suddenly. But it was not to the paleness 
 that the recollection of that moment s fear and desper 
 ate effort might have caused ; it was a quick flush, and 
 there was the lifting of the chin in the girl s proud 
 way, that meant scorn of any kind of daunting con 
 sciousness. 
 
 "Dr. North must have been surprised that there 
 were three of us who hadn t the presence of mind to 
 do the prescribed thing," Estabel replied, in a deliber 
 ate, disdainful monotone. 
 
 "My dear?" That was the Gladmother s way of 
 asking explanation. Her eyes questioned mildly over 
 her spectacles. 
 
 "That we didn t all scream. It was what he had 
 expected. Shall we go on with Persuasion, Glad- 
 mother ? " 
 
 "If you please. It is better, I think, than Pride 
 and Prejudice, " the old lady answered with quaint 
 humor, letting her eyes return to her work through the 
 proper centre of her glasses. 
 
 And then, while Estabel turned over the leaves to 
 find the place, she made that casual remark as she 
 changed her knitting needles and drew out a comfort 
 able length of yarn, 
 
 "Dr. North is a fine man." 
 
 "I suppose he is," Estabel answered shortly. 
 
 "Not more than suppose ? " The Gladmother s 
 smile was lenient. 
 
 Estabel let the book fall back upon her knee, with 
 her finger in it at the right page. She perceived that 
 the Gladmother meant to talk a little, and she yielded 
 to her intention, not only from loving courtesy, but 
 knowing how apt how almost certain the wise wo 
 man s words were to bear some comfort with them. 
 
 "I have not found out exactly how to suppose about 
 Dr. North, " she said, with an air of cool discussion. 
 "I know some things about him, and they are the fine
 
 DR. NORTH IS A FINE MAN." 383 
 
 things. But I don t always understand the way he 
 behaves. " 
 
 "Do we do that with anybody? Perhaps he does 
 not always understand the way other folks behave. 
 People don t invariably behave themselves though 
 that s the common thing to say and expect." 
 
 "That s exactly what I mean. Dr. North does not 
 behave himself. He puts himself away out of sight, 
 and behaves something different." 
 
 " Do you never do that ? " 
 
 Estabel considered the question. "I dare say I 
 do," she answered, after the moment s pause. "I dare 
 say he doesn t understand me. And I think it very 
 likely that he never will." 
 
 This touched the case in point. The Gladmother 
 could speak to a definite intent, though still carefully 
 in the abstract. 
 
 "All the misunderstandings and mistakes in the 
 world," she said, "are in the behaving. If people only 
 knew how to get behind that, into the real person, we 
 should live like the angels. We don t get really inside 
 ourselves, even, into the closet of us, where the Lord tells 
 us to go in and shut the door, and speak to Him. We 
 act in a hurry, on the outside, according to the way 
 things touch us, and people seem. We even say our 
 prayers outside. It s the reason of all the wickedness 
 and the pain and the trouble. There is n t any miser- 
 ableness nor any sin, way in. There s a safe and se 
 cret place there, where the Lord waits with us, and has 
 mercy on us. We must just live out from that, and 
 the open things will be made all right. If we knew 
 ourselves that way, we should come to know our neigh 
 bor so, and it would be easy to keep the Second Great 
 Commandment. " 
 
 "But certainly, Gladmother, we have to meet things 
 and people as we find them ; as they choose the peo 
 ple, I mean to show themselves to us. There s an
 
 384 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 outside even to character and spirit. We are not dis 
 embodied yet ; and it seems as if there were more than 
 one body to be gotten rid of before we shall be." 
 
 "That s as true as can be. But the way to get be 
 yond all the bodily wrappings and hindrances is to get 
 behind them ; to believe behind them, of ourselves and 
 everybody else." 
 
 "It doesn t seem as if we always had the right. 
 It s like listening and prying, when people shut their 
 doors." 
 
 "But if a door has once been open, we are not bound 
 to forget what we have been shown within. We are 
 bound to remember it, and to set it against any outside 
 roughness or poorness or plainness or even ugliness. 
 We are told that some time we shall see the King in 
 his beauty. I think the King s beauty is in the deep 
 heart of every human creature, and is what is going to 
 be brought out, in different patterns and images, in 
 every human creature s everlasting life." 
 
 The Gladmother folded her hands in that attitude of 
 rest they took when her soul rested in some clear word 
 of certainty. 
 
 "Believe in the very best you can get a glimpse of in 
 other people. Call it them, and the other things acci 
 dents. And find out the real true best in yourself, and 
 behave from that. There are n t many snarls, even in 
 this world-tangle, that won t unravel that way." 
 
 "It sounds beautiful," said Estabel; "but it seems 
 to make everybody just alike. Some people must be 
 more or better for us than others, and we have to choose 
 and love our friends because of their moreness and bet- 
 terness. I should not wish to give up that." 
 
 "Did I say just alike ? No, indeed. Every one 
 has an own special muchness and betterness, and there s 
 a special measure of fitness one with another. That is 
 what settles friendships, and all our belonging in this 
 world and in the world this tells of. But we are never
 
 DR. NORTH IS A FINE MAN." 385 
 
 to measure worseness against betterness, nor forget the 
 best that we are or know of because of some small 
 contradiction that we may not understand." 
 
 The Gladmother knew very well that she had simply 
 given Estabel a principle ; that a principle is not a bias, 
 and that a true principle can never work untruly. The 
 girl might easily apply it in more than one direction; 
 that rested with the essential fitness of things ; no harm 
 could come of a frank justice or a generous allowance ; 
 these, and only these, might spare, and perhaps rectify, 
 much that ought not to be unconcernedly passed by and 
 left to trouble or perplex. It is the truth that makes 
 free. Elder experience can do more against young 
 mistake by inspiring that to which itself has ripened, 
 than by remonstrating against any imminent particular 
 mistake. 
 
 And no seed of truth was lost in Estabel s honest and 
 truth-desiring mind. She was comforted, in a degree 
 strengthened against immediate irritation and de 
 spondence by the Gladmother s wise words. 
 
 Some time everybody would understand everybody; 
 perhaps she had not been wholly sure and fair, in all 
 her own thought, to anybody ; if she could mistake, 
 why should she expect not to be mistaken ? If it were 
 only mistake why, that was not real, bitter dislike, 
 nor contempt, nor unkindness ; and mistake would finally 
 prove itself. There was ever so much life to live; she 
 would hold fast, as the Gladmother said, to the best she 
 had, and knew, and wait for the more, that in some 
 way and form must come, since there was really no 
 thing and no one in which or whom there was not 
 a best to come at last into full light. 
 
 But why did not the Gladmother talk to Dr. North? 
 
 The time and way perhaps the clear reason 
 had not yet come. She did her day s errand, and there 
 left it.
 
 CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 
 
 EVERYBODY was a year older. Midsummer had come 
 and passed again. The intervening months, though full 
 of day to day interest and occupation, had gone hy, for 
 the most part, without marked event. It is in the still 
 times, nevertheless, that events ripen. The winter 
 that had made seeming pause and silence in the earth 
 had not heen more surely quick with process out of 
 which the summer revelation should come, than this 
 interval in the simple affairs with which we have to do 
 had been busy in maturing force and preparing circum 
 stance for all that was in near sequence to follow. 
 
 Within the little round of ordinary happening, motive 
 had been shaping, influence had been bearing upon mind 
 and act, perceptions had been deepening and widening 
 changing, as things must change in all such progress 
 toward defining. A whole inner experience, but half 
 known or suspected by each of each, had had its sepa 
 rate, individual, yet mutually related growth in the 
 lives that make our story. 
 
 The keel of the Goldenrod had been laid on Harry 
 Henslee s twenty-first birthday. Through the favoring 
 weather of the remaining autumn weeks the work had 
 been advanced, and all winter long the shipyard had 
 been busy with detailed labor on the many parts, and 
 the gradual rearing into shape of the noble construction. 
 There was no hurrying; spring and summer were to 
 come, when all would be alive with a multiplied and in 
 cessant activity toward completion. The great timbers
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 387 
 
 got thorough seasoning through wet and dry, even while 
 they were bent to place in the majestic skeleton of 
 what was to be perfected into a living thing. Some 
 thing like this, perhaps this slow forming of essential 
 frame in a sure strength that shall be guarantee of safety 
 for all superstructure goes on in the times when lit 
 tle, noticeably, seems to be urging toward the finished 
 achievement of our human destiny. 
 
 A winter in town is, of course, not a shut-up, inac 
 tive season to people who can choose pursuits and com 
 mand opportunity. There was society, plenty of it, 
 both in a refined quietness and in occasional gayeties ; 
 gay, because they were in those times occasional, and 
 not six a day. There was always public entertainment, 
 music, plays, readings, charitable sales, and shows. 
 Something was always going on, though the whole pub 
 lic was not everywhere at once. 
 
 Estabel made a long visit in Casino Crescent,* and 
 was in the midst and reach of all, sharing in it at her 
 own pleasure. What Miss Henslee did not do outside, 
 the Brithwaites welcomed her to do with them. She 
 was very differently placed from the schoolgirl of a year 
 or two ago. She saw things from a new point of view. 
 She realized that there was a society of which that 
 which had offended and rejected her was only the sham, 
 however nearly circles might from mere circumstance 
 touch or temporarily coincide. There was a spirit 
 above any mean distinction or exclusion, and yet careful 
 by inherent delicacy in individual discrimination. There 
 was no "keeping out," nor "getting in;" the right 
 elements drew together, and that was all there was 
 about it. 
 
 There was a gentle tact that appeared in arrangement 
 by which any one a little exceptionally chosen should be 
 brought into no possible uncordial contact, but by quiet 
 degrees be drawn forward instead to such congenial ap 
 preciation that gradually nothing exceptional remained,
 
 388 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 unless it were the position of such as might have held 
 aloof at first, and found themselves self-relegated to 
 remoteness at the last. 
 
 This was naturally more evident where a wise, kind 
 management controlled. Young people could not form 
 their world ; they found it ready made, and accepted 
 or refused accordingly. There was conventionalism 
 enough, even here, to make the tact just spoken of a 
 necessity in dealing with it. 
 
 At Christmas time the whole Stillwick household had 
 been invited in to keep the holiday. A close carriage, 
 with foot warmer and rugs, had brought the Gladmother 
 comfortably from door to door; and for a bright, happy 
 home week she and Lilian had occupied the large and 
 little front rooms overlooking the wide, open Crescent, 
 and here again the south sunshine poured in through the 
 carefully suspended prisms that, whatever else might be 
 dispensed with, were never left behind ; and the farthest 
 spaces of the stately old apartment were filled with ten 
 der touches of the light in every place the same, and in 
 every place a revelation of the same infinite gladness 
 and glory. 
 
 This holiday time had given Estabel the beginning of 
 certain new insights which were to be clue and sugges 
 tion to much after thinking and doing. It is this after 
 thinking which we shall have to follow to the after act. 
 
 For one thing, as the weeks went on, she could not 
 help perceiving how she herself was growing to be more 
 and more regarded in the Henslee family. Mr. Hens- 
 lee treated her as a daughter ; Aunt Lucy was what 
 Aunt Lucy had always been, only with a stronger as 
 suredness, a more settled conclusion. It became plain 
 to Estabel that they looked upon her as quite belonging 
 to themselves. Why was it ? Was she so independ 
 ently dear to them, or did it mean something more ? 
 Was anything going to be expected of her ? She felt 
 a something in the air; she hardly knew whether it
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 389 
 
 exhilarated or depressed her. She was happy, and yet 
 she was half afraid. 
 
 Harry was the same old, frank, bright, kindly com 
 rade. Brighter and more kindly, if possible, than ever, 
 in certain ways. He seemed sometimes to purposely 
 make the most of their mutually intimate relation ; to 
 come to her with communications and questions about 
 his own affairs ; to test, almost, how far and how much 
 their reciprocal sympathy and help might reach. He 
 looked at her sometimes, as if he were considering, 
 measuring; but then that had always been his way; 
 certainly, he had always been solicitous for her to show 
 her best and claim her utmost, according to his idea of 
 best and utmost. If she ever failed, it aggrieved him 
 personally; when she succeeded, he was proud with a 
 kind of possessive pride. Surely that was no common 
 interest and regard. And now there was often a kind 
 of glad expression, as of a satisfied triumph, both in his 
 look and speech, as he observed her. But what was 
 this a triumph over? What uncertainty was now and 
 then appeased? And when would he have done apprais 
 ing her? 
 
 What did he want ? What did they all want ? What 
 did she herself want ? 
 
 Something she could never have, perhaps. Some 
 thing that could never, altogether, be found or gained 
 in any human combination of character or event. 
 
 She had a dream, but it did not seem like a whole 
 dream. The elements of a round reality were not all 
 there. There was an opposition, a contradiction. 
 Where there was a grand, unswerving righteousness of 
 nature, there was a hard, unfair, unwilling self-presen 
 tation. Where there was easy, pleasant conformity, 
 there was an inward something of strength apparently 
 lacking. Which, after all, was the most real? Was 
 it only that she liked the difficult, coveted the with 
 held? Might not hardness, in a certain way, indeed,
 
 390 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 be weakness, and the most gentle, generous, happy de 
 monstration come from the entire harmony that is 
 strongest of all ? 
 
 She had talked with Lilian Hawtree one day about 
 Harry Henslee. 
 
 "If he would only be a little bit superior to 
 things," she said. 
 
 "I don t think you are quite fair to him," Lilian 
 had answered. "I think you are too much given to 
 theory, and admire it too much in stiffly theoretical 
 people. It seems to me that a life full of brightness 
 and kindness to everybody is the best outcome of theory, 
 and that some persons live that way without much the 
 ory at all. Mr. Harry Henslee doesn t trouble so 
 much about what he does things for, as how he can do 
 the most to make everything nice for everybody. 
 Doesn t that work out, in the end, to quite the same 
 
 or to more of it as a fierce insisting upon reasons 
 why, and a settling of how all the world ought to be 
 put to rights? Is n t it the way of the leaven? " 
 
 And then Estabel was reminded of the Gladmother s 
 word of the Lord s inner place with every one, out of 
 which the life flows. 
 
 Did Lilian see deeper than she, with all her search 
 ing and analysis, could find out ? How had she made 
 so sure of this nobler solution of Harry s easy, adapt 
 able bonhomie ? 
 
 And how her face had lighted, while she vindicated 
 him! 
 
 Yet still, Estabel knew within herself, without con 
 fession, that a courteous greeting from Ulick North 
 his coming to her side for a moment, perhaps, in a 
 crowded hall, between the numbers of a concert recital, 
 
 a lifting of his hat to her with a smile in the street 
 was more to her than all Harry Henslee s daily, kindly 
 assiduities. 
 
 It was without confession. She thought she com-
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 391 
 
 pared abstractly. But she still wished for Harry some 
 thing more of that uncompromising strength which made 
 concession rare and beautiful. 
 
 Ought she to look behind the manner with him, and 
 believe in the strong source of the sweetness? 
 
 Might the sweetness and the peace of her own life 
 depend upon it ? 
 
 She had already taught herself, through the Gladmo- 
 ther s lesson, to look behind the roughness to the possi 
 ble gentleness in Ulick North. Perhaps she was more 
 than willing so to look, that she might escape the pain 
 of the roughness. But she had not thought, until Lilian 
 said it, of so looking to find a hidden force in Harry 
 Henslee. To her mind this was something very like 
 Samson s riddle. 
 
 The relation between Dr. North and herself was now 
 that of a sufficiently gracious, well-mannered acquaint 
 anceship. He met her accidentally; he came to the 
 Crescent once in a while. He had, on his part, dis 
 missed unreasonable resentment ; he would not betray 
 himself to himself by that ; but he was cautious of 
 reminder and recurrence. He relinquished her, appar 
 ently, to those who had such earlier and better right. 
 The intimacy of Mount Street, where a common kinship 
 and connection had made them as of one family, was 
 all over. Evidently, Estabel thought, he did not care 
 to have such days back again. And she well, she 
 could do without them. 
 
 Without doubt, she was just where many a girl de 
 cides between that which her nature craves and that 
 which offers ; and takes, as Ulick North had expressed 
 it to himself in cynical forecast for her, "the easy 
 way." 
 
 One thing had occurred in the early spring at which 
 Estabel was simply and instantly indignant, without 
 pause to ask herself or Harry whether it might be dif 
 ferently understood than on the face of it.
 
 392 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel had been at her home in Stillwick since the 
 middle of January ; she would not stay altogether away, 
 even where it was almost as much home to her, and 
 where, in every possible way, she was persuaded to feel 
 so. But early in March she came again. They wanted 
 her, they said, for ever so many plans. Harry who 
 might have been an artist if he had not been born and 
 trained to be a merchant, and in whose hand a pencil 
 moved like that of a spiritually controlled planchette, 
 to any little illustration of the thought or whim of the 
 moment was to make a design for the figurehead of 
 the Goldenrod, and wanted Estabel s ideas and coun 
 sel. Also, Easter fell early this year, and Mr. Henslee 
 and his sister had determined to open their house for 
 a somewhat general party. Of course, Estabel must be 
 there for that, and a quiet time previously would be 
 needed for the other affairs. There were plenty of 
 reasons, and there was really no reason why not ; so she 
 came. 
 
 It was when the immediate arrangements for the en 
 tertainment were under consideration, and the invitation 
 list in final discussion, that the offense to Estabel arose. 
 But that was not until nearly three weeks from her 
 arrival, three weeks in which there had been so much 
 that was interesting and happy and successful that it 
 would hardly seem possible any even momentary break 
 should disturb such established serenity. 
 
 Estabel had at once proposed the subject for the 
 figurehead, a girl, stepping forward, the lap of her 
 gown gathered up in one hand, out of which drooped, 
 as from a cornucopia, a light, splendid sheaf of golden 
 blossoms that were to be veritably richly gilded in the 
 carving; and in the other hand held forth and up, with 
 gesture of infinite spirit, a tall cluster of the same for 
 ensign and augury. This was to be the stately and 
 jubilant gracing of the prow of the Goldenrod, bound 
 for the "Golden South Americas."
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 393 
 
 Harry had sketched it rapidly at first; then he care 
 fully worked out a copy in detail. When it was done, 
 they all exclaimed joyfully at its beauty. 
 
 "You have made it look like" - Estabel said sud 
 denly; then checking herself, "somebody I certainly 
 have seen, " she added warily. She had caught a 
 swift expression of annoyed consciousness in Harry s 
 face. Then she knew that he had more or less de 
 signedly made it look like Lilian. 
 
 "I have made it look as much as I found possible 
 like the prettiest woman s face I could compound from 
 all the loveliest impressions I have ever got. I dare 
 say it looks like somebody like several somebodies, " 
 he answered coolly. 
 
 But this was not what angered Estabel. She only 
 put it away among other recent ponderings. We are 
 coming to what did affront her. 
 
 It was over the invitation list, and the making of 
 Aunt Lucy s programme for the important evening, and 
 her memoranda of things and service to be needed. 
 
 "You will want a german, I suppose? " she said to 
 Harry. 
 
 "Why, of course, auntie! It wouldn t wind up at 
 all without a german." 
 
 "It used to be the Virginia Reel," said Aunt Lucy. 
 
 "It s the german now; and the party won t stop 
 without it." 
 
 "Certainly, then, it will have to be; we don t pro 
 pose to give up the rest of our lives to the function. 
 And if german, then favors. You ll have to favor 
 me with all the necessary information. I have n t an 
 idea what to get, or to what extent." 
 
 "Oh, "said Estabel, "there s where we need Lilian. 
 She could contrive favors beautifully. She s full of 
 invention, and her execution keeps up with it. You 
 can t imagine anything pretty and good that she 
 can t do."
 
 394 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Why shouldn t she be here for the whole time? I 
 wonder why I hadn t thought," said kind Aunt Lucy. 
 
 Harry s face took expression of as decided, although 
 different, disconcertedness as it had worn on occasion 
 of the figurehead impeachment. 
 
 "She wouldn t like that, at all," he said quickly. 
 "It isn t in her line. She doesn t dance the german." 
 
 "How do you know? " flashed out Estabel. "Have n t 
 I just said there s nothing she can t do? " 
 
 "Well, she sha n t come here and decorate, and then 
 sit and decorate a corner herself the whole evening. 
 And that s what it would he." 
 
 "Harry! I m ashamed of you! Lilian is lovely 
 down atStillwick; and she ll do anonymously to 
 decorate " but there, again, Estabel had the mag 
 nanimity, in the midst of her displeasure, to stop; 
 "but you don t think she 11 do here in the Crescent, 
 at a tony party! I ve a great mind to go right home 
 myself. " 
 
 And with that she swept forth past him, out of the 
 room. 
 
 "I don t think Estabel understands," said Aunt 
 Lucy. 
 
 "I don t think I shall take the trouble to make her," 
 Harry replied loftily. 
 
 Whether or not it came to her, as explanations after 
 the fact do come, that it might be partly, at least, on 
 Lilian s own account that Harry had objected, the little 
 breeze blew over, and Estabel said no more. Harry s 
 dignified silence on the point may have suggested to her 
 a conscious sense of justification on his part, that would 
 not condescend to ask justification from her. And 
 possibly she may have guessed a little more, once on 
 the trail, of that which might be the truth. What she 
 had in the old time a year or two back is old time 
 witli the young regarded as his bit of snobbishness in 
 her own case, might have been a touchiness for, rather
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 395 
 
 than against her ; a sensitiveness, through a really gen 
 erous sympathy, to what she might have to encounter. 
 
 But would he be brave enough to carry out this gen 
 erosity of feeling to a full generosity of act ? Was he, 
 or was he not, inseparably a part of the world as he 
 knew it, irretrievably committed to its judgment, of 
 whose judgment he was afraid in behalf of those for 
 whom he personally cared ? 
 
 She could not answer these questions yet. She tried 
 to give him the benefit of the doubt. 
 
 So she was kind to him again with something like an 
 apologetic kindness, though she could not, from a full 
 persuasion, offer him the frank amend of words. She 
 could not go to him as it would have been her honest 
 nature to do with, " Harry, I take back what I said ; 
 I believe I was mistaken. " She might, after all, have 
 to take that back. 
 
 Harry accepted the tacit apology; he would have 
 hated an open one ; he supposed she had had the sense, 
 on reflection, to see for herself. Besides, it was not 
 easy for him to maintain displeasure with anybody; 
 with Estabel, and under his father s loving observation 
 of them both, it was impossible. 
 
 Another thing that Estabel did not fully comprehend 
 was the strong affection for this "grandest old parent," 
 which could not only shape Harry s course to Mr. Hens- 
 lee s desire, but even effectually stand in the way of 
 what might otherwise have been his own. If he ever 
 put it to himself in words that a new power of love was 
 gaining possession of him, which was giving this "new 
 kind of girl altogether " the real dominance in his life, 
 he would, up to this time at least, have thrust it aside 
 with the consideration, "It would disappoint my father 
 so." 
 
 Miss Henslee ceased to be disturbed. She thought 
 she saw that all had been made right again between the 
 two ; such little ups and downs were characteristic of the
 
 396 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 very circumstances she wished for; a certain intolerance 
 of fault was surest evidence of intimate personal con 
 cern; one is only minutely critical of quality where one 
 is making important choice for one s self. 
 
 The Eastertide party came off bravely; the best of 
 Topthorpe was there, old and young, rejoicing that the 
 fine old mansion was again brilliantly thrown open to 
 social amenities and delights ; and Estabel was a centre 
 here, receiving honors paid, perhaps, as much prospec- 
 tively as to her undoubted present personal deserving, 
 which people seemed all at once not slow to discover. 
 
 It was pleasure to her; no young girl can resist the 
 charm of a cordiality which confesses her charming. 
 But it did not hold all possible gladness for her ; there 
 was a part of her which was not satisfied nor touched 
 something that still waited, as it had waited all her life. 
 
 Nothing more had been said about Lilian; it had 
 been wiser, even kinder, so. Estabel, out of her own 
 experience, could feel keen jealousy for her friend, 
 and she blamed nobody, although she missed her. But 
 for intense happiness, a summer morm ng in the woods 
 by the river together a bright day at Henslee Place 
 such an hour as they had had once in the wonderful 
 Hall of Plants either of these would have been more 
 than worth all this. 
 
 Of something yet beyond a companionship and 
 sympathy yet higher and profounder, that she might 
 grow to and have given her in the great, rich giving 
 of an enlarging and wholly answering life of this her 
 thought was vague, but the inceptive imagination and 
 yearning were within her ; they were the hidden promise 
 that made it lovely, and yet a lovely, hazard, to live on. 
 
 Dr. North declined his invitation to the party ; he 
 did not go a-frolicking, he said. But he made a proper 
 evening call afterward, and behaved with a kindly ami 
 ability that was evidently intended, and was graciously 
 received as due acknowledgment.
 
 HOLIDAYS IN THE CRESCENT. 397 
 
 After that, Estabel had gone home. She carried 
 with her a quiet, happy recollection of the later, tran 
 quil evening. The dance and its excitement dropped 
 hack into the past. 
 
 Dr. North had been at his best and nicest. It was 
 so necessary for her to think well of anybody whom 
 she liked.
 
 CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 "WE UNDERSTAND." 
 
 WE will go on from the point at which we paused to 
 glance backward, that we might see what the intervening 
 time had done to determine the individual bearing and 
 relation of our little group of friends, before following 
 the further line of incident in their simple lives. 
 
 Summer had come round again ; they were all a year 
 older. That statement involved the rapid retrospect. 
 One cannot wholly skip a year, even in trying to con 
 solidate a history ; for history makes, silently, all the 
 time. 
 
 We have not particularized in regard to Lilian Haw- 
 tree; we can take her up at any point, and find herself 
 and her position, as we find the North Star and its 
 aspect, always in the same heavenly and earthly rela 
 tion. Her life was so largely and truly in the life of 
 others not so much in self-abnegation as by a divine 
 capacity for entering in, with the Divine, to the heart- 
 interest of every human soul that really all life about 
 her was luminous to her, as by the revealing of the fine, 
 mysterious gleams of a spiritual light, of which the then 
 undiscovered physical rays are emblem and suggestion. 
 And this is the blessedness God s children were made 
 to give and take in mutual enrichment. Heaven does 
 not forget the great, sweet selves who know not how 
 to be selfish. The Lord himself is selfish for them. 
 That which they pour out upon others returns to them 
 as they look not for it, and centres in their own being. 
 A full tide of the universal joy that is divided to go
 
 WE UNDERSTAND." 399 
 
 round, flows, soon or late, into the hearts that can so 
 widen to receive the promised measure. 
 
 This new, beautiful summer was full of a certain 
 strange delight to Lilian, the keen delight that often 
 touches pain, but of which the pain is all ignored. She 
 saw the story growing; she knew what was hoped for, 
 what seemed certainly coming to pass, and she was 
 glad with a gladness that moved unsounded depths in 
 her own nature. She was loving and beloved by repre 
 sentation ; all the rich and happy future that lay before 
 these two made intensest hope and wishful solicitude 
 for her. It would be so sad if it should miss. But it 
 could not miss. It was certainly going to be. There 
 would be this much more happiness in the dear, happy 
 world. 
 
 No one, not capable of the same self-transfer, or 
 something like it, can comprehend why the keen percep 
 tion did not reflect and betray to consciousness what in 
 a different spirit might have turned to a sharp or bitter 
 coveting. It is so hard, until we are full-born into the 
 light, to see a good without the small, appropriative 
 instinct to grasp and to possess it. In the spiritual 
 babyhood we snatch and cry. 
 
 Harry Henslee said to himself in these days, not, "It 
 would disappoint my father so, " but, " It would please 
 my father so." 
 
 He even asked himself why he should not be happy. 
 He had known Estabel all his life. She was thoroughly 
 companionable to him. He liked her strength, when it 
 did not presuppose and set itself against his weakness. 
 And it was only in the judgment of an unsparing 
 strength like hers that he was weak. He had the 
 quiet, every-day wisdom that took things as they were, 
 and believed that they could be made better, when it 
 needed, without any rude overturning. He liked his 
 fellow mortals, and did not hypercriticise them. Be 
 tween him and Estabel, all these matters would settle
 
 400 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 themselves, he thought. "All that will pass over," his 
 father had said. 
 
 At any rate, it seemed to him that after all that the 
 years had heen leading up to and making evident, the 
 right of choice lay with Estabel. If she cared and 
 if his father intensely desired then so let it he. It 
 came to this point in his mind, and I think that rather 
 than of weakness it was of strength. He would do all 
 that his father asked ; there would be no absolute satis 
 faction to himself in leaving it undone. He took no 
 note of the suggestion that if he failed, it would be to 
 become free. He honestly decided that he would give 
 the thing its chance. Even in his own nearest interests, 
 he was of the temperament to take his world as it was, 
 rather than turn it violently upside down. 
 
 There was immediate planning about the Golden- 
 rod. She was almost ready for her launching. There 
 was soon to be a little party of house visitors who 
 should be asked to stay for the ceremony, several 
 from Peaceport, a few from Topthorpe. Others would 
 be there for the day, merely. It was likely to be a 
 gay, notable company. A good deal was to be done, 
 and many little matters of detail to be decided. 
 
 "They want me at the Place to-day," said Estabel, 
 coming into the shop parlor. "Harry has walked over 
 for me." 
 
 Harry had not followed her in. For some reason he 
 had stopped out in the shady back porch, where he 
 drank a cool dipperful of water from the well, and then 
 picked up the blue kitten, as he called Estabel s little 
 Maltese cat, and sat down to play with it on the door- 
 stone. He had met Estabel there, feeding it, as he 
 came up through the garden. 
 
 Aunt Esther had a message to send to Cousin Lucy, 
 and an inquiry to make, upon which errand she went out, 
 found the young man teaching the kitten to jump over his 
 hands, and further detained him, instead of asking him in.
 
 " WE UNDERSTAND." 401 
 
 The two girls were left alone for a moment. 
 
 "I don t see why you shouldn t come too," said 
 Estabel. 
 
 "But I do," Lilian answered, smiling. "Not asked 
 there ; and wanted here. I m not exactly a piece of 
 you, you know, however attached we are." 
 
 "Separation is a hard thing, sometimes. I wonder 
 if we shall ever have to go different ways." Estabel 
 spoke with a gravity hardly accounted for by the situa 
 tion. 
 
 "I don t think there are any different ways." And 
 then Lilian grew grave also. "I think sometimes 
 may I say so, Estabel? that in some things you don t 
 exactly know your own mind. I think you are meant 
 to be a very happy woman." 
 
 Estabel looked for a second intently into the sweet, 
 warm face and the depth of the searchlight eyes. Then 
 she changed her gravity to an odd sort of fun. 
 
 " You think and you think and you think ! / 
 think you are in a terrible hurry to be a very happy 
 angel ! " 
 
 She took the uplifted face between her hands, kissed 
 Lilian, and left her. 
 
 They stopped halfway through the wood, where the 
 pine fragrance was richest, under a tenting of boughs 
 over a soft, needle-filled hollow, and sat down in their 
 old fashion, in one of their wonted places, upon a 
 lichened log. 
 
 Harry had something to say, and he took for granted 
 the pause in which to say it. 
 
 Words hardly ever impend that do not give the pre 
 monition of their coming. Estabel knew that a mo 
 ment had arrived that there was no use in evading, that 
 she had no least wish to evade. Whether she might per 
 haps control or modify its announcement, might effect 
 decision without categorical explanation, was another 
 matter. All her feminine diplomacy sprang up, alert,
 
 402 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 to do this. She did not want to refuse Harry Henslee. 
 She did not wish him to have to remember, by and by, 
 that he had put himself in a false position. 
 
 "In two weeks the Goldenrod is to be launched," 
 he said. 
 
 "I know," responded Estabel. 
 
 "And I suppose you know what they expect of us? " 
 
 "To be on board; to christen her; and to be launched 
 in her." 
 
 "Exactly. Don t you know that they would be glad 
 that it should be our launching ? " 
 
 Estabel was delighted that he had put it so, what 
 "they expected; " what "they would be glad of." If 
 she could only keep it all in that third-person form of 
 statement ! 
 
 "I think they thought of it long ago; before the 
 Goldenrod was thought of. And now they have set 
 their hearts upon it, " he continued. 
 
 "Isn t that a pity? Because, of course, that could 
 never be enough." 
 
 Estabel broke a leaf of wintergreen from a stem she 
 held in her hand, and put its tip daintily between her 
 teeth. " How shall we get their hearts off from it ? " 
 
 She looked sidewise, mischievously, at him. Senti 
 ment, if he had begun with it, could hardly have per 
 sisted against that look. And yet there was something 
 provocative of all the sentiment that was really in him 
 toward her, in that little mockery of hers. 
 
 "Must we do that? " he asked her. 
 
 It was time now. Another word might change the 
 whole third-personal into first, discussion into appeal, 
 that would seem to be incumbent. 
 
 " Harry, " and she threw the leaf and stem away 
 from her, and turned and faced him without disguise or 
 hesitation, "you know that we do not care for each 
 other in that way. And we are really too fond of each 
 other to make such a mistake."
 
 "WE UNDERSTAND." 403 
 
 Well, this was bluntness. This was going to the 
 root of the matter, without any douht. He looked at 
 her, not thinking at the instant what to say. Then the 
 absurdity struck them both, and they both laughed. 
 
 "If that is your ultimatum," Harry began. 
 
 "But it isn t. There s something else. Look way 
 into your heart, Harry, and see if it isn t there. I 
 think you have been afraid of it, and that is why you 
 have made up your mind to come to me." 
 
 She stood up now. There was something just a wee 
 bit scornful, or ready to become so, in her tone. 
 
 "No! " cried Harry, springing also to his feet. 
 "I 11 make you understand me now, if you never have 
 before. It was n t that. It never has been that, that 
 made me thin-skinned and cantankerous about things. 
 I just can t bear to have anybody I think much of 
 looked down upon by other sorts of folks. And as to 
 speaking to you - and making up my mind about you 
 I d do a good deal harder thing than that to please 
 my father. " 
 
 Estabel held out her hand. "I m on your side, 
 now, Harry. And it s all right. You haven t made 
 a word of love to me, and I did n t mean you should. 
 AVe ve just talked matters over and we understand. 
 And I advise you to tell your father about that some 
 thing else. You don t know how good he can be until 
 you try. " 
 
 They walked along the wood path together a little 
 way, hand in hand. AA T hen they came to the old brook- 
 crossing at the stepping-stones, Harry went first, and 
 gave his hand again to Estabel, and helped her over. 
 And so, without thinking, except that they were charm 
 ingly of one accord, they walked on up the slope to 
 gether, and near the garden corner met Mr. Henslee 
 suddenly. 
 
 He glanced from one to the other with a kindly smile. 
 They dropped their hands apart and came up to him.
 
 404 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Is it all right between you, children?" was his 
 greeting. 
 
 "It s just as right as it can be, dear Mr. Henslee. 
 A great deal righter than it might have been." 
 
 And with that she sped past him into the house, to 
 Aunt Lucy. 
 
 "What does she mean, Harry? " 
 
 "It means that she knows better. And she is apt 
 to be radically right, you know." 
 
 Mr. Henslee did not relish his own words given back 
 to him so. 
 
 " Has she refused you, boy ? " 
 
 "She would n t let there be anything to refuse, 
 father. But we like each other, and understand each 
 other, more completely than we ever did. And I in 
 sure that what you really want is to see everybody 
 happy." 
 
 It was so true that Mr. Henslee took his disappoint 
 ment to himself, and for the time, at least, put it qui 
 etly by. He asked nothing more, though he wondered 
 how the strange "understanding" had come about. 
 
 The "something else" waited. They went into the 
 house together, and talked with Estabel and Aunt Lucy 
 about the decorating of the Goldenrod, and the pre 
 liminary entertainment of the young house party. 
 
 In the end, after all, Mr. Henslee thought everything 
 might come right, even in his way. For there had 
 been no refusal. 
 
 Either there was still hope, or Harry was particularly 
 comfortable without hope. Whichever might be the 
 case, Mr. Henslee had the sense to see that there was 
 nothing to meddle with, or reasonably to deplore. 
 
 Aunt Esther was sharper at discovery, and more posi 
 tive in her conclusion. That Avas partly because she 
 was a woman, and partly because she had had more 
 continual opportunity for weighing and balancing proba 
 bilities. She had been for some time uncertain about
 
 " WE UNDERSTAND." 405 
 
 issues ; perhaps gradually growing to be a little divided 
 in her own wishes. She had become very fond of 
 Lilian. It had been quite as much for the girl s sake, 
 as for any anxiety concerning tacit family plans, that 
 she had spoken that little word in season to the Glad- 
 mother. Not for all the family plans in the world, nor 
 for her own most essential interests, would Esther Char 
 lock have schemed or moved a finger in underhanded 
 interference. 
 
 When Estabel came back, and Harry Henslee left 
 her with a friendly good-night at the door, she was a 
 little puzzled. Nothing seemed to have occurred, after 
 all. But there was a kind of relieved cheerfulness in 
 Estabel s face and manner all the evening, and in her 
 way with Lilian a certain loving wistfulness that showed 
 in a soft tone and a look that dwelt upon her as with 
 some secret, happy thought that yet had doubt in it. 
 
 Would the angel take the gift that might be coming 
 to the woman ? Would she, at the right time, under 
 stand herself, having so little self ? That was the ques 
 tion in her thought, as she watched the sweet, uncon 
 scious composure of Lilian s face; and although Aunt 
 Esther did not translate it into words, she read the 
 feeling, and set it alongside the other equally evident 
 one. 
 
 "She looks as I feel when I ve got through a job 
 of housecleaning. She s got something off her mind. 
 But she s turning round now, and taking up something 
 else just as responsible." 
 
 That was what Aunt Esther divined at once, and it 
 did not take her long to "ravel it all out " for herself 
 in a pretty close approximation to the fact.
 
 CHAPTER XLIX. 
 
 THE SAUNSEE MILLS. 
 
 THE approaching launch and its accompanying fes 
 tivities at Henslee Place were stirring the whole coun 
 tryside to gayety. It was a great thing to be included 
 in the house party. It was the next great thing to be 
 staying in the neighborhood, even as far as Peaceport 
 and Pequant. Invitations were scattered liberally for 
 the launch itself, and with only unavoidable restriction 
 to house and grounds, and to the various excursion par 
 ties which were arranged to pass the time pleasantly 
 during the week preceding the great event, which was 
 fitly to conclude the generously extended entertain 
 ment. 
 
 It was a long time since the Stillwick shipyards had 
 been in use for their old, fine purpose which had made 
 wide reputation and been the pride of the coast section 
 of the county. Mr. Henslee was a deeply respected, 
 highly popular man. Memories of stately hospitalities 
 and old family importance gave grace and distinction 
 to whatever, in later and busier days, revived them. 
 And with all the rest, there was young Harrison Hens 
 lee coming up to share and finally possess and represent 
 the whole, place, wealth, tradition. No small inter 
 est and speculation gathered around him, watching his 
 course and choice in life. Rumor had circulated that 
 these were preordained. Rumor was being verified as 
 to the proposition of the first part ; a good deal might 
 depend upon whether the verification was to be extended 
 to that of the second. This launching festival might
 
 THE SAUNSEE MILLS. 407 
 
 make some definite disclosure; it could hardly help giv 
 ing clue and color to probabilities. 
 
 Every Topthorpe girl who had a school or society 
 friend in Peaceport made interest for some timely ask 
 ing to a few days stay. Peaceport people were hospi 
 table ; there was scarcely a family, of a certain set, that 
 had not in this August holiday some young visitor. 
 And there was great driving to and fro, and trying of 
 the new railroad, between Peaceport and Stillwick. 
 
 There was a sketching picnic to the Saunsee Mills. 
 These were spinning factories, picturesquely placed 
 where the little Saunsee comes into Stillwick River be 
 tween Moonic Ledges, cutting its way with a natural 
 rush and incline of some thirty feet in half a mile, and 
 utilized for power by a fine dam across the ravine, a 
 furlong or so above the junction of the streams. 
 
 Lovely woods and bits of view abound ; there are 
 grand climbs up the fir-grown heights ; a little way be 
 yond the mills there is a charming hollow glade for 
 lunching convenience ; and the mills themselves, with 
 their complete and delicate machinery and their pretty 
 product, afford a rationally sufficient object for the 
 jaunt. It is always well to have a rational object; a 
 few people will always care for that ; and it chaperones, 
 as it were, all incidental and general amusement. 
 
 The morning was bright, and the party was gay; 
 large enough to divide into groups, and choose differ 
 ently among the attractions of the place. To a good 
 many it was sufficient that there were people ; it hardly 
 mattered where the people went, or what for, so that 
 they were of the right sort, and one was among them. 
 That is one great secret of associations, clubs, improve 
 ment societies, benevolent unions ; it often does not seem 
 to signify what the swarm holds on to, if only there can 
 be a swarm. Doubtless the social instinct was given 
 for good and happy ends, and such are sometimes sub 
 served by it.
 
 408 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabfel and Lilian really wanted to see the mills, 
 which spun such famous woolen yarns, from heavy car 
 pet fibres to fine, soft, delicate threads such as the 
 Gladmother knitted up into lovely little shoulder shawls 
 and baby blankets to give away. 
 
 There were separate ranges of buildings for the differ 
 ent kinds of manufacture. One ran along the river 
 bank, and the other extended back, at right angles to 
 it. Under the waterside block, at its lower end, across 
 which the other wing stood contiguous, an archway in 
 the brickwork of the ground story gave entrance through 
 to the inclosed mill yard. This brick-walled basement 
 was used for storage; the upper chambers held the run 
 ning works. 
 
 "I want to begin at the beginning," Estabel said. 
 
 "And at the foundation? You always do," Harry 
 answered laughing. "Come down here, then." And 
 he led them along the path by the river edge behind the 
 mill, to the outer angle of the main structures, where 
 two or three rough steps descended to the power-house, 
 projected upon strong piers above the water. Here, 
 underneath the plank flooring, that palpitated and 
 jarred with the incessant regular beat, whirled and 
 churned the huge turbine wheel in the mighty urging of 
 the current sweeping down between the narrow limits 
 of the flume. 
 
 Two or three other girls had come with them, but 
 most people wanted only to see the thing in full blast 
 of accomplishment, and had already gone in above, to 
 make more or less rapidly the usual course from the 
 "opening" and "blowing" chambers, and the carding 
 and lapping rooms, whence the fluff soon drove them 
 forward, to the clearer precincts, where they could 
 watch the pretty slivering and roving and reeling, and 
 the spinning out upon broad traveling frames of the in 
 numerable finished threads, that wound themselves at 
 last upon long ranks of whirling bobbins.
 
 THE SAUNSEE MILLS. 409 
 
 " What a dim, dank, doleful hole ! " said one girl, 
 just glancing in at the low doorway of the eerie-looking 
 place where Harry told them "the party began." 
 
 "I don t think I care about foundations," she de 
 cided. "Take em for granted. I ve no doubt they re 
 all right. When you are satisfied, come back to com 
 mon daylight. Good-by." 
 
 And she sprang lightly up the steps again, followed 
 by one of her companions. 
 
 "That archway takes you through to the mill yard," 
 Harry Henslee called out after them. "Go in at the 
 middle door on the left, where the staircase runs up, 
 and you 11 overtake the others." 
 
 "It s just as well to have only a few here at a time, " 
 he remarked, as he rejoined the remaining three, and 
 they entered. 
 
 The third girl who persisted was Corinna Chilstone. 
 
 Times were changed since the days at Mr. Satter- 
 wood s, and the "impregnable castle," and the "not 
 knowing a girl because you happened to go to the same 
 school with her. " There are schools and schools ; they 
 were in another one now, where Estabel was taking a 
 degree higher than Corinna had quite come to, with all 
 her precaution. Estabel Charlock was in the heart of 
 the Henslee home and intimacy ; Harry Henslee was the 
 finest young fellow, with the most brilliant prospects, 
 of any they knew in all Topthorpe ; so Mr. Chilstone 
 said to his wife, more than once, in Corinna s hearing. 
 
 Mrs. Chilstone could not do much in Estabel s direc 
 tion just now; she had refused her opportunity. The 
 Clymers were no longer their neighbors ; they were in 
 Europe - in the East heaven knew where, or when 
 they would come back. But Mrs. Chilstone raised the 
 personal interdict, and took occasion to observe that it 
 was fortunate for the girl that circumstances had changed 
 her Topthorpe connection, and to admit that under suit 
 able conditions she individually did well enough.
 
 410 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Condescension or patronage would be supererogatory 
 they were impossible in Casino Crescent ; the only 
 link and that had been weakened, as far as small 
 frictions could weaken indissoluble relationships was 
 with Aunt Brithwaite and Mary ; both Corinna and her 
 mother sought diligently to undo unfavorable impression 
 there. 
 
 Corinna spoke with unblushing compliment of Estabel 
 Charlock, "come out so very well after all her school 
 girl betlses ; " and laughed at herself for having, per 
 haps, misjudged her in a hurry. "You can t tell about 
 looks or style, or even conduct, by the way a girl ap 
 pears at fifteen, " she said, with tardy magnanimity and 
 fresh world- wisdom. "She may change altogether, 
 just as the color of her hair changes. And then, of 
 course, other people change their minds." 
 
 "Estabel has not changed," said Mrs. Brithwaite 
 quietly. "There is more of her, but she is just the 
 same. She has only deepened and ripened." 
 
 " So I said, like the color of her hair ; but it makes 
 all the difference," said the unabashed Corinna. 
 
 Even the milliner s shop even the chosen friend, 
 the carpenter s daughter and milliner s assistant 
 these facts Avere smoothed over now with a tolerant ac 
 ceptance, "under present conditions," in which so much 
 else, of highest countenance and of things best worth 
 while, were involved. The self -called "best society" 
 has its own special knack and privilege of smoothing 
 over, or ignoring, "under conditions," far worse im 
 peachments. "The king the royal circle can do 
 no wrong, " is its tacitly adopted motto. 
 
 "People can always do as they like in the country; 
 what is quite inadmissible here is extremely respectable 
 there, " Mrs. Chilstone pronounced, with majestic con- 
 donement. "And it s very kind, I m sure, the way 
 they ve all taken up that little Hawtree girl, who is 
 really a genius in a certain sort."
 
 THE SAUNSEE MILLS. 411 
 
 Estabel was actually in a position to "take up; " it 
 was evident that she was past the point for being put 
 down. 
 
 All this is very small beer to chronicle ; but there is 
 a vast amount of small beer brewed in the world, and 
 there are persons of whom there is nothing else to 
 chronicle. 
 
 So the Chilstones had come blandly over from Pe- 
 quant, and renewed their summer acquaintance, and 
 been invited, with the Brithwaites and other mutual 
 social foregatherers, to the pleasant doings at Stillwick ; 
 and so to-day, where Harry Henslee led, and Estabel 
 and Lilian followed, Miss Chilstone found it instructive 
 and interesting to go also ; even into the dim, dank, 
 noisy, shuddering "foundation" of things at the mill. 
 
 They did not stop here long ; Harry simply showed 
 them how the shaft from the horizontal water-wheel 
 came up through a slot in the flooring, and turned the 
 bevel-gear wheel that was also horizontal upon the same 
 axis at its top, but whose slanting ridges and grooves 
 played into those of a similar one set perpendicularly 
 to it, whose shaft, supported in a heavy block, ran on 
 into the next compartment with its converted motion. 
 Toward this adjoining room, the entrance to which 
 opened from inside the arched passage between the mill 
 buildings, they turned their steps by a short ascending 
 footway. 
 
 Here the long, low shaft from the power-house 
 crossed, forming the axle of two great, upright, partly 
 sunken motor pulleys that ran parallel, at a distance 
 from each other of some two or three yards, their strong 
 beltings passing up through the floor above, and sever 
 ally connecting with the machinery of the upper cham 
 bers of the two wings of the works, conveying into their 
 multiplied complications the life energy of the whole. 
 
 They had to stand close together, and speak loudly 
 to each other, for the space was small and filled with
 
 412 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 the sound of rush and rumble, swash and clank. It 
 was a little more possible to hear and be heard than it 
 had been in the power-house, and there was also more 
 light ; and Harry proceeded to give a partly detailed 
 explanation of transmuted motions, making some slight, 
 hasty illustrations with pencil and tablet, of gear 
 wheels, cross-bands, and shaftings, that showed the 
 principle at a glance. 
 
 "You ll see a good deal more of it upstairs," he 
 said. "But there " pointing upward where the belt 
 ings disappeared into the room above "goes the force 
 that starts and keeps alive the whole concern." 
 
 "Very curious, I m sure," remarked Corinna Chil- 
 stone, pressing round in front of the group to look more 
 closely at Harry s diagram. "It s so nice to know all 
 about it." She spoke in the necessary raised tone, 
 which, as in talking with a deaf person, absurdly em 
 phasizes an insignificant utterance. 
 
 Harry laughed. "Yes," he returned, with the same 
 exaggerated effort, and a soupgon of conscious fun. 
 "Nothing like exhaustive research. But hullo! 
 Look out ! " 
 
 The last exclamation was in forceful earnest, and he 
 grasped her by the arm. 
 
 At the same moment Lilian sprang to Miss Clril- 
 stone s side, almost between her and the ponderous re 
 volving shaft. "Take care!" she cried. "Your 
 dress ! " 
 
 She snatched and gathered in her hands the long, 
 voluminous folds of summer silk, and held them back, 
 as Harry drew the girl away in safety. 
 
 "My! " ejaculated the young woman, bewildered by 
 the suddenness, and hardly realizing the specific danger. 
 Something terrible, it seemed, was threatening here, 
 and might yet happen. She had much better be out. 
 With that flash of conviction, and perhaps a little 
 pique, just before provoked, mingling with her fright,
 
 THE SAUNSEE MILLS. 413 
 
 she released herself abruptly from Harry s hold, and 
 sped swiftly through the open doorway. 
 
 It had been only a breathing space of time, but in it 
 something more had really happened. 
 
 Lilian wore a delicate muslin gown, full and floating 
 in the fashion of the time. As she had seized upon 
 Corinna s garments, forgetful of her own, these swept 
 treacherously near the steady driving axle of the wheels. 
 
 A waft of wind blew through from the outside. 
 
 Estabel and Harry turned to see the hem of the 
 pretty skirt, all unknown to Lilian, picked up by the 
 projection of the shafting-pin, and lifted into the first 
 round of a horrible revolution. 
 
 In another breath, Harry had her in his arms.
 
 CHAPTER L. 
 
 " I WOULD NE VER HAVE LET YOU GO ! " 
 
 IF it had only been the catching by a pin of the light 
 material ! But the giant had a terrible maw ; a big, 
 strong jaw, and it laid ready hold. It was as if the 
 lapping of a tongue had drawn into the monster s mouth 
 the first bit within its cruel reach of the thing it lay in 
 wait for, and would feed on. 
 
 It began to chew ; to wind horribly into its devouring 
 grind a larger clutch ; to hold fast ; to drag, slowly, 
 pitilessly. 
 
 There was other clothing. There were stronger hems. 
 Oh. was there, Harry wondered in a torturing flash, 
 a hoop ! 
 
 He fought with his strength against the strength of 
 the machine. He wound his arms about the girl s 
 waist, and pulled, with all his weight and hers, away. 
 
 The fabric tore. It shoidd tear, and go! It must 
 yield itself ; but Lilian should not be touched ; she 
 never should be forced nearer ! 
 
 He did not lose his head. His own charge was the 
 charge of this instant here ; but he did not forget 
 what should be done. 
 
 "Call to some one," lie bade Estabel hoarsely. 
 " Stop the works ! " 
 
 And Estabel flew to the doorway. A man crossed 
 the mill yard. She repeated the command to him. 
 
 "Stop the works! An accident! " she shouted clear 
 and strong. 
 
 The man turned, ran toward her, passed her. A
 
 "I WOULD NEVER HAVE LET YOU GO!" 415 
 
 glance within, as he shot by the door, showed him the 
 full warrant of occasion. 
 
 Estabel was back, upon her knees, by Lilian s side. 
 She seized the rending edges of the torn garments ; she 
 wrenched them farther and farther away ; she threw 
 apart, in great stretches, the slitting lengths, outstrip 
 ping the destruction ; she flung the fragments off, as 
 she would fling pacifying morsels to a wild beast. 
 
 And then it was not a moment the whole had 
 hardly been a thing of minutes the creature had been 
 holden by the throat ; its breath and pulse were gone ; 
 its great power fell limp ; it gave up the ghost. 
 
 A slow hush ran over the mill. Upstairs, the wheels 
 slackened, the belts flapped, the spindles and bobbins 
 whirled weakly, with a faint singing sound in their 
 expiring hum. It was truly thrilling; it was like a 
 dea.th. 
 
 The gay visitors were surprised into a silence. 
 What did it mean ? 
 
 " Some hitch below, " an overlooker said, and went 
 down to see. 
 
 Harry had hurried Lilian out into the air. The 
 overseer s house was near at hand, just outside the 
 mill yard, beyond the river wing. He and Estabel 
 hastened her along the quiet path at the back, where 
 they had come down. 
 
 "Can you walk? " Harry had asked. 
 
 " Oh, yes please somewhere out of the way, " 
 she answered. 
 
 So, pale and sweet, though torn and trembling, she 
 went on with them, and Harry still kept his supporting 
 arm about her waist, while Estabel, upon her other 
 side, held her hand tenderly, and let the kindly breeze 
 from the river sweep her own soft skirts across to shel 
 ter Lilian s disarray. 
 
 Harry Henslee himself was pale enough, and felt a 
 tremulousness he would not show. It was in his voice,
 
 416 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 though, when he said anxiously, "You are sure you are 
 not hurt? I had to drag you so." 
 
 "I am quite safe." Then with a little shudder, 
 " If you had had to let me go ! " 
 
 "I would never have let you go! " 
 
 Past, present, and future tenses were all in the into 
 nation of the words, and an involuntary underscoring 
 in the tightened pressure of his arm ahout her. He 
 could not have helped it if he had tried ; and he did not 
 try. But as soon as the words were spoken he realized, 
 with a conscious exultation, that he had virtually said 
 it all. 
 
 Mrs. Pritchett, the overseer s wife, received them 
 with effusive kindness. The young lady must go right 
 up to her room, and "lay down." She would make 
 her a cup of tea. She d had a strain, of course; she 
 must be hraced up and quieted down. A person needed 
 hoth, after such a "fluctuation." 
 
 "A cup of tea take it lay in down 11 do you 
 all the good in the world. T ain t so much the tea 
 itself, perhaps if tea was n t handy, but it most al 
 ways is it s just the coming back to something com 
 mon and comfortable, when you ve been shook half out 
 of your senses. You want to be broke, if it s only for 
 a minute, of that feeling that you re in the middle of 
 the wheels, and be set on your own every-day track 
 again. It s about the only way you can help folks 
 under bereavement. Most anything will give a start, 
 sometimes : a drop of camphire, or a snuff of salts ; my 
 aunt Dianthejane come to on a clam-stew, and an apple- 
 dowdy, dished up, unexpected. Even lookin in the 
 glass, and seein you re right there, after all, same as 
 you were before, will settle a person a good deal. 
 Though I wouldn t advise that right away, in your 
 case, till you re a little bit samer. Take this now, 
 dear, and then we 11 see to your gown. It s real lucky 
 you don t wear much of a hoop. If it had been one of
 
 "I WOULD NEVER HAVE LET YOU GO!" 417 
 
 them long floating bells, now, and a strong silk over 
 it!" 
 
 "That was what Miss Chilstone had on! Oh, Es- 
 tabel ! " Lilian turned very pale again. 
 
 "There, don t talk; and don t remember anything," 
 said Mrs. Pritchett, disappearing into a big closet, 
 whence she emerged presently with a rustling pile of 
 her best summer equipments. 
 
 A white skirt was easily furnished ; and then she 
 would have had Lilian put on a blue barege, flounced 
 and ribboned, quite fine and fashionable ; but Lilian 
 said, " no ; not anything that could possibly hurt, or be 
 defaced, or have the freshness taken off." She would 
 have that nice white dimity, and thanked Mrs. Pritchett 
 so much. 
 
 "You needn t mind a grain about takin the new 
 off; and you ain t goin back into the machinery. But 
 you shall take your choice. I guess you 11 do well 
 enough in most anything." 
 
 Harry thought so, half an hour later, when he came 
 to inquire, and found her ready to go back among her 
 friends. 
 
 "Only take me into some quiet place, and don t let 
 people talk to me, " she said. 
 
 The company was in the shady hollow, established at 
 their lunch. Harry found a little nook against a shel 
 tering rock, with whispering birches growing round it, 
 and a great strong oak branching over from above, be 
 hind it. Here he placed her and Estabel comfortably, 
 and brought Mrs. Brithwaite and Mary to sit by, within 
 the narrow opening through the fringe of shrubbery, 
 and went away himself, to answer questions and fend 
 off curious approach. 
 
 Miss Chilstone had a mind to share the renown and 
 the romance. 
 
 "The same tiling came very near happening to me 
 only a few minutes before, " she remarked to right and
 
 418 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 left, as the excited comment went around. "My dress 
 was catching, but Mr. Henslee pulled me away just in 
 time. She ought to have come away then, as I did." 
 
 Mrs. Chilstone sought out Harry. 
 
 "I hear you have saved two lives to-day, Mr. Harri 
 son Henslee, " she said, with a graceful air of emotion. 
 "Let me thank you for your rescue of Corinna." 
 
 "Miss Hawtree saved Miss Chilstone s life, at the 
 very great risk of her own. That is, she prevented the 
 danger, which consequently fell upon herself, " Mr. 
 Harrison Henslee replied, with cool disclaimer. 
 
 But Mrs. Chilstone did not seek out Miss Hawtree 
 with her thanks. 
 
 When they all got home, Estahel and Lilian ac 
 counted for the white dimity to Miss Charlock, whom 
 they first met, hy the simple statement that Lilian had 
 torn her lilac muslin, and been obliged to borrow this 
 of Mrs. Pritchett at the mill. They thought it better 
 to put off the full explanation, especially with the 
 Gladmother, till a night s rest and a just-as-usual morn 
 ing had, according to Mrs. Pritchett s theory, set all 
 things on a stable, common track again. Estabel knew 
 that this was far more advisable for Lilian herself than 
 to live over again by exciting repetition the occurrence 
 of those terrible few minutes. 
 
 Miss Charlock looked from one to the other with keen 
 eyes and a firm set of the lips. Lilian slipped out of 
 the room. 
 
 "Where s the pieces? " demanded Miss Charlock of 
 Estabel. 
 
 "Oh, it was pretty badly used up. It would n t be 
 any good, and so we left it." 
 
 Miss Charlock continued her gaze, first through her 
 spectacles, with uplifted chin, and then with head de 
 pressed and the line of vision preternaturally raised above 
 them. 
 
 "H m! Some folks think they re keeping dark
 
 "I WOULD NEVER HAVE LET YOU GO!" 419 
 
 when a thing s as plain as daylight; and when it & 
 plain as daylight they think they re keeping dark ! " 
 
 "Well, Aunt Esther, you can keep dark with your 
 eyes wide open, you know," said Estabel. 
 
 "Chooty-choo! " And Aunt Esther added to herself 
 as Estahel also passed on upstairs, "That girl s heen 
 within an inch of her life. Or the other thing. I sup 
 pose she and the Gladmother would say it was all one." 
 
 Miss Charlock was perspicacious. When Mrs. Trubin 
 and Lilian talked it all over the next day, the Glad- 
 mother asked tenderly, "How did you bear that one 
 terrible minute, dearie ? " 
 
 Lilian s head was resting on the Gladmother s shoul 
 der. Her face nestled down closer to the loving heart. 
 
 "I knew help would come quickly from one 
 side or the other, and either way it would be life," she 
 said softly. 
 
 " I thank the dear Lord he sent the help on this side, 
 and brought you back to me ! " was the fervent return. 
 
 Brought back. Was she altogether brought back? 
 Or, if so, was it with a larger altogether a new ex 
 perience of this life, instead of that swift change into 
 the life beyond? Was this side to open into wider 
 beauty for her, be richer, be nearer without violence to 
 that other, to lead more gently toward it, be more 
 identical with it ? 
 
 Lilian felt her heart mysteriously full of something 
 it had not held in a clear consciousness before. But 
 there was nothing at this moment to tell the Gladmo 
 ther, except what she had told.
 
 CHAPTER LI. 
 
 "CAN YOU PUT UP WITH IT?" 
 
 THERE was something, however, for Harry Henslee 
 to tell his father. 
 
 Escaping the gay company on piazza and lawn and 
 in the open parlors, he made his way after tea to the 
 quiet upper balcony reached only from Mr. Henslee s 
 own room in the long wing, where that gentleman was 
 enjoying his comfortable evening cigar. 
 
 The younger man did not smoke. That virile accom 
 plishment had as yet no enticement for him. There 
 are elective studies in life, as well as in the universities. 
 Harry Henslee had not included this in his curriculum. 
 But he loved dearly to sit by his father in this evening 
 peace, and talk with him sometimes as they were hardly 
 apt to talk together in the broad and busy daylight. 
 The evening smoke, like the after-business drive, was 
 a time for confidence. 
 
 If I have succeeded in presenting young Harrison 
 Henslee as he presents himself to me, you have under 
 stood him to be the sweet, fresh young fellow, with as 
 few faults of his environment as might accrue, that he 
 certainly was. Life was really all before him, in the 
 best sense. His father exulted in him for this reason. 
 Lilian Hawtree, with her intuitive insight, going to the 
 heart of things and persons, had divined it. Any 
 woman, also fresh and young, might hold herself privi 
 leged to begin to live, and to grow on to higher and 
 higher living, with such a one, who had nothing to over 
 live or to live down, but every best possibility of nature 
 to unfold and satisfy.
 
 "CAN YOU PUT UP WITH IT?" 421 
 
 Absolutely free from all bitter warp and prejudice, 
 even in his little superficial conventionalities, frank 
 and generous, full of the early home affection that 
 makes a natural wider love, a love that perpetuates 
 home from home through happy generations, sure in 
 warmth and loyalty, he was a good deal more than 
 Estabel had been able to give him just and entire credit 
 for. She had thought she knew him, when she only 
 knew his boyish ways. She had settled his place in her 
 scale of judgment before she had learned that secret of 
 looking beneath the surface to the inner side, for the 
 realities of character and relation, and for the meanings 
 of all things and circumstances. The difference between 
 her and Lilian was that she was still learning this, and 
 applying it as theory to proof, while with Lilian it was 
 something instant and identical. It was as science to 
 inspiration. Lilian had had the blessed talisman of the 
 direct perception from the first. This made her patient 
 with hardness, because of the tenderness she was sure 
 might be underneath ; but it drew her with a yet sweeter 
 impulse to the simple kindliness that flowed, like sun 
 shine, from some central power of being and of giving. 
 There may be hardness without tenderness ; at least, 
 a hardness that tends to permanently crush back and 
 seal up tenderness ; but the strength of the good heart 
 must be behind the continual act of a warm humaneness. 
 The "way of the leaven," as she had said, is after all 
 the final, prevailing way of "setting the world to rights." 
 
 And Harry recognized in her this very help and echo 
 to his own worthiest. "She doesn t pick the world to 
 pieces, nor set a fellow to dissecting himself into bits, " 
 he phrased it in his thought. "But she s there, with 
 the gist and marrow of it, all the same. She s just 
 made of every creature s best, on purpose for every 
 creature to know his own best when he sees it, and so 
 be made the best of." 
 
 And with this in his heart, he came out to-night to 
 talk to his father.
 
 422 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Father," he began, as he pulled up a piazza chair 
 and seated himself close beside the elder man, leaning 
 a little forward with his arms along his knees, and 
 twisting a bit of honeysuckle in his fingers, while his 
 head bent very near Mr. Henslee s ear, "I am afraid 
 I am going to disappoint you." 
 
 Mr. Henslee took the cigar from his mouth and 
 looked round upon his boy. 
 
 "If you are, Harry, it will be for the first time in 
 all your life." 
 
 "Thank you, pater," was the reply, in a moved, 
 manly tone. "That makes it all the harder." 
 
 "What if I won t be disappointed? I know there 
 can be nothing wrong. What has happened ? " 
 
 "It has happened that I have found myself out, at 
 last, and given myself away." 
 
 Mr. Henslee repeated the words with an interroga 
 tion. The phrase had not then become a colloquialism. 
 
 "Committed myself, I mean. Quite involuntarily. 
 It comes to the same thing. Father, I want Lilian 
 Hawtree for my wife, and I have so nearly asked her, 
 that I must say the rest at once. But I had to tell 
 you first." 
 
 Mr. Henslee was silent. It needed a little time to 
 take this in, even so far as to reply. It would need 
 longer to fully adjust himself to such a change in all his 
 plans and feeling. But he was first of all a father; if 
 his child had found out, truly, what was bread to him, 
 he would not insist upon a stone. If he had tried to 
 manage his son s life, to forecast it a little, and to turn 
 his steps, if they would be turned, toward the patli that 
 looked to him most desirable and safe, it was only from 
 the impulse of pure fatherhood ; worldly scheming had 
 nothing whatever to do with it. It was none the less 
 a little startling to discover that the boy he had led by 
 the hand, and upheld, had found his own feet, and could 
 suddenly, as it were, go alone, choosing his own way.
 
 423 
 
 Harry took advantage of the silence, and put aside its 
 awkwardness, by telling at once the story within the 
 story of the day. 
 
 "You see maybe you remember, father," he said 
 cunningly, with a smile, "there are times when a man 
 doesn t know exactly what he is likely to say next. I 
 told her I would never let her go. That was because 
 she thought I might have had to let that brutal machine 
 get her away from me. But it meant that nothing 
 should ; no hard or cruel machinery of any sort ; that 
 I would never give her up." 
 
 Then Mr. Henslee spoke. 
 
 "Yes; you will have to tell her the rest, Harry," he 
 said. 
 
 "Can you put up with it? " 
 
 Mr. Henslee s cigar had gone out. He tossed what 
 remained of it away over the railing, and turned quite 
 round in his chair toward his son. 
 
 "Can I put up with you, Harry? I ve had a hand 
 in the making of you what you are ; and it is what you 
 are you choose from. It would be hard if after all 
 I couldn t trust your choice. Come and tell me to 
 morrow what she says to you." 
 
 It was so, without demur or qualification that should 
 mar, or be hereafter remembered, that this high-minded 
 gentleman gave his consent. 
 
 "Estabel told me that I didn t know how good you 
 could be till I tried, " said Harry, with a stir of strong 
 feeling in his voice. 
 
 " She knew of this ? " 
 
 "I told you she knew better than even I did, then." 
 
 "Estabel is a fine creature." And a breath that 
 might have been the sigh of a regret, or the last gentle 
 release of a useless wish, escaped him as he spoke. 
 
 "We must go down now, Harry. And however 
 it turns out we won t let anything be talked of before 
 the present affair comes off."
 
 CHAPTER LII. 
 
 "HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF." 
 
 THE two sat together upon the sloping mossy rock 
 under the thick, spicy pines, where Harry had found 
 Estabel and Lilian that first morning that seemed so 
 long ago. 
 
 He had come over to-day at as early an hour as might 
 be ventured, with his open inquiry and his reserved ask 
 ing. He had met Miss Charlock in the garden, and 
 put the first to her. Then he had said, quite as openly 
 and frankly, "Now, Miss Esther, if you please, I want 
 Lilian." 
 
 " Oh ! If I please, you want Lilian ? " Aunt Esther 
 repeated. "And what if /want Lilian, if you please? " 
 
 "But I don t. And you will spare her to me? A 
 walk in the woods will rest her. I came on purpose." 
 
 "I haven t the least doubt you did. You ve come 
 on purpose pretty often lately, have n t you? And I ve 
 been pretty good, I think. Well / don t mean to 
 ask much of her to-day. I 11 see what she says to 
 you." 
 
 " Not exactly, Aunt Esther, " the young man mur 
 mured as she went off. " De post facto will be time 
 enough. " 
 
 "Aren t you coming, Estabel?" Lilian had asked, 
 as she put on her hat. 
 
 "No. I m busy. It s your turn to-day. History 
 repeats itself. Mind you re real good to Harry, Lil, " 
 she added, as she kissed her.
 
 HISTORY REPEATS ITSELE." 425 
 
 "Why? Weren t you real good to him? " 
 
 "History repeats itself, I said. Yes; I was just 
 the goodest I knew how to be." 
 
 "How long am I to keep dark with my eyes wide 
 open ? " inquired Miss Charlock, after Lilian had gone. 
 
 "Oh, a time, and times, and half a time. Not more 
 than half a time, now, I guess, Aunt Esther." 
 
 "When you re saucy you think you re smart ; and 
 you think you re smart when you re saucy," returned 
 Miss Charlock. 
 
 " Chooty-choo ! " said Estabel. 
 
 Lilian was very happy to-day. Life was sweet to 
 her. She did not stop to ask the reason why. She 
 took her day as it came, not dreaming definitely, even 
 yet, what it was to bring forth. She was in that half- 
 wakened state when dreams are vague, delicious. 
 
 So they walked away into the fragrant, gentle mys 
 tery of the pines together, and came to the old lichened 
 boulder by the brookside. 
 
 Harry asked her if she remembered. 
 
 "One doesn t forget such days," she said. "I think 
 it was almost the happiest I had had then, in my whole 
 life." 
 
 "No, one doesn t forget when happiness begins. 
 But I am glad you say almost, and then. 
 
 " Why ? " she asked him innocently. 
 
 "Because I should like to try to make some still 
 happier for you, now, and always. That very day I 
 began to love you, Lilian. I want you for my wife." 
 
 He had turned to her and taken both her hands in 
 his. She left them there. She was hardly conscious 
 of her hands. 
 
 He waited. Perhaps a minute. It seemed long to 
 him. "Haven t you an answer for me, dear? " 
 
 Then a little thrill ran through her, and trembled 
 into broken words.
 
 426 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I thought I did n t know until" - and with 
 these fragments the difficult answer ended. 
 
 Harry still held fast her hands. He was looking 
 straight into her eyes as straight as she would let 
 him look, with the flickering glances that met and fled 
 from his. The light in his face almost made her afraid. 
 She did not dare to let it kindle hers with its magnetic 
 shaft. 
 
 "I will ask you one of those things at a time," he 
 said. " You thought ? " 
 
 "I thought it was to be something different." 
 
 " Nobody else thought so who was immediately 
 concerned to think. Estabel and I have discussed and 
 settled that. And you did not know ? " 
 
 " I did not know how much it might mean for 
 me." 
 
 Now he caught her with one arm round her waist. 
 
 " Until ? " he demanded eagerly. 
 
 "Until yesterday and now," she answered him. 
 
 "And forever! " said the heartsome, realistic young 
 fellow, Avith a glad solemnity. 
 
 They hardly knew how long that morning was, among 
 the pines. 
 
 As they walked back at last through the orchard, a 
 bluebird over their heads in the branches broke forth 
 with its rare, late warble. 
 
 " Forever forever forever, " it repeated. 
 
 A trail of the heaven-color followed it, as it flashed 
 away in the sunshine.
 
 CHAPTER LIII. 
 
 QUEEX ESTHER. 
 
 "MR. HEXSLEE wants you in the parlor, Lilian," 
 said Miss Charlock. 
 
 "Mr. Heiislee?" 
 
 "Yes; my cousin. Not your boy. There s at least 
 two of them in the world, after all, " Aunt Esther an 
 swered, with an odd shortness and an odder twinkle in 
 the corner of her eye. 
 
 "Don t be grim-funny with me to-day, dear Miss 
 Charlock ! " 
 
 "Call me Aunt Esther, and I won t." And she 
 kissed her. "I m a mixture; most people are. You 
 must take me as I come, as you do chow-chow pickle." 
 And as Aunt Esther left the room there was something 
 in the corner of her eye besides the twinkle, which did 
 not, however, put the twinkle out. 
 
 She had made up her mind to it ; she loved Lilian, and 
 she was glad. But she would hardly have been human 
 she certainly would not have been Miss Esther Char 
 lock, with nearly twenty years of a pleasant dream be 
 hind her that had melted back into dreamland if she 
 could quite, at the very first, have kept down the 
 thought, " What shall we do now with Estabel ? " 
 
 Mr. Henslee came forward to meet Lilian as she en 
 tered the door. He took her by both hands and bent 
 down tenderly and kissed her cheek. "My little daugh 
 ter ! " was all he said. 
 
 Lilian s face, sweet and flushed with his salute, was 
 lifted to him in a shy, happy surprise.
 
 428 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Are you going to be so good to me as that? " she 
 asked tremulously. 
 
 "I am going to love you dearly, my child. You are 
 going to be very good to me, I think." 
 
 "But I thought I always fancied " she stopped, 
 as she had just so before, with Harry. 
 
 "AVell, tell me what you thought." said Mr. Hens- 
 lee, as he led her to the sofa. Sit down here, and 
 let us understand each other from the beginning. You 
 fancied ? " 
 
 "That you were wishing something else, and that it 
 was sure to happen." 
 
 "Nothing is sure to happen but what we do not ex 
 pect, " said Mr. Henslee, smiling. Neither had that 
 saying then become common proverb. "We generally 
 want something else in this world, while the very best is 
 preparing for us. And in this happening nobody is 
 disappointed." 
 
 "How generous you are! I ll try to be a good 
 child, Mr. Henslee." 
 
 "I think if there were to be any trying, it would 
 have to be the other way." 
 
 After that, there was not much more for words. 
 
 "You will go up and see the Gladmother ? " Lilian 
 asked presently. 
 
 "And while I talk with her, you will put on your 
 things to ride back with me ? Aunt Lucy wants to see 
 you." 
 
 Lilian shrank a little. "The house is so full of 
 people, Mr. Henslee," she said. 
 
 "Aunt Lucy s room is never full. There will be no 
 one there but Harry. And he made me promise not 
 to be very long. The people are all about on the 
 croquet-ground, out in the bowling-alley, in the peach 
 orchard, and down by the river. The house is almost 
 a solitiide. And we can drive round to the back door." 
 
 While Lilian lingered a little over the simple changes
 
 QUEEN ESTHER 429 
 
 in her toilet, Mr. Henslee saw first the Gladmother, 
 and then the others with her. 
 
 "We are not going to roh you of anything," he told 
 Mrs. Trubin. "If you will only adapt your plans a 
 little to ours, we will try to make it only a happy dif 
 ference. Harry knows what you and Lilian are to each 
 other." 
 
 "And the Lord who sets in families knows how to 
 make the links," the Gladmother answered him. "We 
 won t plan just yet; we shall come across our plans 
 as we go on." 
 
 Mr. Henslee began to think that it was not only an 
 unexpected but a very unusual good that was replacing 
 his earlier wishes. The lovely dignity and calm of this 
 beautiful old lady was something learned in higher than 
 what are in ordinary comparison called the highest 
 circles. 
 
 "And we won t tell everybody yet," he suggested, 
 as he went downstairs with Aunt Esther and Estabel. 
 Lilian had slipped into the Gladmother s room for a 
 separate good-by. "It would make it harder for Lilian. 
 We 11 launch the barque, and then we 11 launch " 
 
 "The thunderbolt? " interrupted Miss Charlock, with 
 a ponderous mischief. "You needn t say it; it will 
 say itself. But it might as well be out of our hearing. " 
 
 "I didn t mean it, Esther. There will be no thun 
 derbolt. I think there is conducting power enough to 
 save that." He spoke with just a touch of not unkindly 
 haughtiness. 
 
 " May I say something ? " Estabel asked him hur 
 riedly, at the stair foot. 
 
 "You always may; anything." 
 
 "Then, don t you think there is a very good dissipat 
 ing atmosphere here just now? Don t you believe Top- 
 thorpe would take it more complacently if it were con 
 fided in on the spot? Not to-day, of course, but at 
 the right time ? "
 
 430 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I believe you always have inspirations, Estabel. I 
 will tell them after the launch." 
 
 "Don t you think Lilian ought to christen the ship? " 
 
 Mr. Henslee was not so instantly positive in concur 
 rence to that. He was not quite ready to set Estabel 
 so far aside. But the next day she persuaded him. 
 "It will put her right into her place, with all the 
 honors," she said. "It is only just what ought to be." 
 
 And Mr. Henslee saw that the rest would come more 
 naturally. 
 
 "You shall be as generous as you please, Queen 
 Esther," he consented. "There can be no dispute with 
 royalty. " 
 
 Lilian yielded to the wish and argument of all, and 
 to Harry s individual persistence. "You could not 
 please Estabel better, " he said. 
 
 But her acquiescence was with a certain little private 
 reservation. She, too, had her inspirations. 
 
 " We shall all be together ? " she asked appealingly. 
 
 "Oh, yes; you shall be well supported." 
 
 "And perhaps the people won t all notice," she sug 
 gested simply. 
 
 "Perhaps not, if that consoles you," said Harry, 
 laughing. "There are always a good many who don t 
 catch the point of a thing until it is all over." 
 
 "And you won t tell of it beforehand? " 
 
 "No, indeed. That would spoil the fun. You shall 
 spring a mine upon them." 
 
 Lilian did not half like that way of putting it, but 
 she said no more.
 
 CHAPTER LIV. 
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE GOLDENROD. 
 
 THE day of the launch was a day of glory. 
 
 Summer was still tender in the air, but the rich 
 breath of early aromatic autumn met it with a kiss. 
 The hills sent down their messages of ripened odors. 
 "The time is fulfilled; the year is of age, and possesses 
 its inheritance, " they said. 
 
 The orchards were opulent with fruit ; in the gardens 
 there were sweet peas and pansies and summer roses 
 still ; the year was not old, but perfect. The asters 
 shone in white and violet constellations; the marigolds 
 were ablaze ; in the pastures the tall yellow plumes that 
 claimed the honor of the day were proud and gay. 
 Their representative delegations had gone down in mul 
 titudes from the hillsides to figure in pomp for all their 
 tribes. 
 
 The Goldenrod was decked from stem to stern. 
 
 She lay upon her cradlings, with a graceful lean 
 toward the water, as a swallow leans into the air for 
 flight. 
 
 Her lower masts were set ; light temporary staffs 
 were run up from them to a stately height, and lan 
 yards stretched in sweeping curves between, and out to 
 prow and taffrail, bearing flags and streamers, and 
 bright wreathings of the chosen flower that transformed 
 their common lines to shining garlands. 
 
 At the fore, beneath the union-jack, floated the ship s 
 ensign, a suggestive, if slightly conventionalised, tuft of 
 the emblematic blossoms upon a ground of blue, bordered
 
 432 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 with scarlet ; at the main, the private signal of the mer 
 chant, a blue diamond in a field of white ; ahove the 
 stern, the stars and stripes. 
 
 The company was gathered on the slope of the river 
 bank ; some found natural seats of stone or turfy ridge, 
 making them comfortable, if they felt the need, with 
 shawls ; there were improvised benches down by the 
 water margin, of boards and blocks from the building 
 yard. 
 
 Many walked curiously about, or stood in groups, or 
 came down in little squads close to the ways, to inspect 
 and ask about the details of the vessel, and the methods 
 of its support and letting go. 
 
 A special party was upon the deck, moving kaleido- 
 scopically to and fro, certain persons always keeping near 
 the bow to be ready for their sudden duty. The bright 
 attire of ladies and the flutter of gay colors overhead 
 made a picture in the sunlight, and now and then the 
 music of a band struck up, and echoed in sound the 
 brilliance of the visible tones. 
 
 The vessel lay slantwise from the spectators ; the 
 current which was to take her off swept away into a 
 bend and broadening of the stream, that a little farther 
 widened to its full estuary. The prow, with its queenly, 
 graceful figurehead, seemed to lift itself with a noble 
 courtesy of acknowledgment, like a lady rising to re 
 ceive and greet her guests, or a great actress before her 
 applauding audience. 
 
 The shoring beams had been taken away ; the sliding- 
 timbers, upon which the lovely craft was to go down into 
 her waiting element, had been pushed up under her hull 
 upon the ways, that were slippery with plentiful smooth 
 tallow ; she rested upon the keel blocks still, but men 
 underneath her with great hammers were alert for the 
 critical moment of striking them away : others were 
 already "wedging up" between the sliding beams to 
 force the vessel s weight upward. Those of the lookers-
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE GOLDENROD. 433 
 
 on who understood watched breathless ; a crowd of the 
 ignorant were shortly taken by surprise. 
 
 Two girls stood together upon the fore deck in the 
 bow; two or three gentlemen just behind them. A 
 shout came up from below ; the wedgers and hammerers 
 scrambled with prompt agility back out of possible 
 peril ; the keel was eased from its support and the 
 blocking fell aside ; the vessel settled gently to its lower 
 place upon the movable timbers, which started began 
 to slide along the ways. 
 
 She moved. She glided downward. There was the 
 slight crash of glass. In the instant s silence of the 
 expectant throng, a clear voice rang out sweetly, while 
 she who with one hand had broken the bottle of sparkling 
 wine over the rail, held fast with the other that of her 
 companion, drawing her close beside and almost for 
 ward, so that for many it was hard to tell which had 
 done the actual christening, as the words were proudly 
 uttered, 
 
 " We name this barque the Goldenrod ! " 
 
 Before the sound or its impression had fairly died 
 away, down, like a waterfowl, the beautiful form slipped 
 into the embrace of the stream, discarding her supports 
 of block and beam like childish things all done with, 
 buoyed herself gracefully, and curtseyed to the gentle 
 swell she made, her flags and pennants flying gayly 
 backward with her motion and the softly concurring 
 breeze, and presently lay proudly quiet. 
 
 Then a great cheer went up from all, reiterated with 
 specialty, - for the Goldenrod, for the Diamond Line, 
 for the Stars and Stripes ; and with the band playing 
 the Star Spangled Banner, and the boats crowding up 
 to the side among the floatage of the disdained chips 
 and lumber, the bright function was over, and the ex 
 hilarated company, with animated exchange of com 
 ment, compliment, and query, dispersed to their waiting 
 carriages upon the roadside, or along the shady foot-
 
 434 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 paths that led back among the skirting copses from the 
 river bank to Henslee Place. 
 
 "Which was it?" 
 
 "And who was the girl? " 
 
 "What did it mean? " 
 
 "Well, the Henslees can do anything. And Estabel 
 Charlock can do anything with the Henslees." 
 
 "She was astonishingly pretty. Was it just for the 
 effect, or was it for a cover? And when are we to 
 know ? " 
 
 So the buzz-buzz circulated, as Mr. Henslee foresaw 
 it would, and prepared the way for his adroit little 
 social coup d etat. 
 
 It was at the happy moment when no break had yet 
 been made in the festive gathering, when there was 
 yet time, and not too much, for after observance and 
 remark, which were better made here, at once, and the 
 tone taken, when the viands of the collation were done 
 with, and the plates and forks and cups and spoons col 
 lected and removed, that the great silver punch bowl, 
 on its beautiful antique salver, was brought into the 
 hall and set upon a tripod table under the well of the 
 staircase whose fine sweeping curve ascended with the 
 light yet stately grace that made a chiefly noted point 
 in the admired architecture of the old colonial mansion, 
 and Mr. Henslee came forward beside it with a move 
 ment of invitation and a waiting word of something more. 
 
 It was claret cup. Miss Henslee did not approve of 
 any more exciting beverage ; but it was claret cup such 
 as is only brewed from some old, complex recipe of de 
 licious ingredients, possessed and used most rarely. Its 
 ruby color flashed in the large reflecting curve of the 
 noble basin; thin bits of rich, keen tropical fruits 
 floated in its liquid light ; a few fragrant leaves were 
 dropped upon the surface of the generous pool ; cunning 
 spices gave out a gently mixed aroma.
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE GOLDENROD. 435 
 
 There was a little stir toward it among those who 
 saw ; the word and the movement were caught through 
 the open rooms, and a soft surge swept the company to 
 its new centre of gratification. 
 
 Mr. Henslee took up the ladle. 
 
 "Before we drink, friends, I have something to claim 
 your kind congratulation for beside the launching of 
 my vessel. It is a good time to tell it, and it has been 
 a very happy time for it to happen. I have the great 
 pleasure and honor to announce to you my son s 
 engagement of marriage to Miss Lilian Hawtree." 
 
 The young couple stood close by; Harry, at his fa 
 ther s hint, had managed it so. Lilian had not been 
 told what was coming; "why should she dread it before 
 hand ? " Mr. Henslee had asked. He knew the best 
 thing to trust to would be her delicate, sure instinct, 
 and her lovely simplicity. 
 
 He took her by the hand, drew her toward him, bent 
 to her, and kissed her on the forehead. She lifted her 
 sweet, surprise-flushed face and shy-dropped eyes, and 
 met his look upon her with one in which her whole 
 heart shone so that it lighted up her beauty with a 
 glory. Her other little hand laid itself upon his ; her 
 soft eyes welled; her lips trembled. She forgot every 
 thing but his generous adoption ; it was that only which 
 moved her. She was afraid, abashed of nothing, in his 
 strong countenance and protection. 
 
 Nobody dared to whisper, "It is the milliner girl." 
 Various enough were the bits of remark that circulated 
 more or less guardedly about the rooms, and wonderful, 
 as usual upon such events, the bits of information that 
 here and there answered eager inquiry. 
 
 "Her people are English, they say, and of a very 
 good old name, if you go backward and sideways far 
 enough. No relations, on this side, happily, except, 
 I believe, some sort of a heavenly old grandmother. " 
 
 The lady listening to this looked across to where
 
 436 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Lilian stood, beside Miss Henslee. "She 11 do, I 
 should think, " she said between two sips of her claret. 
 
 "She ll have to do," returned the first speaker. 
 "And we may all make up our minds to it." 
 
 A gentleman joined them. "She s as beautiful as 
 the Mrs. Henslee in the hall," lie declared. "I con 
 gratulate Topthorpe." 
 
 And so Topthorpe had to submit to be congratulated, 
 until a little later it learned thoroughly to congratulate 
 itself. 
 
 "The Henslees always were independent," was heard 
 in another corner. "They have never been very par 
 ticular about marrying in their own set." 
 
 "Their own set! " ejaculated a fine looking old fa 
 therly aristocrat, in almost perilous distinctness. "My 
 dear Mrs. Portreeve, their own set is pretty much all 
 in the Chapel Green bury ing-ground. You don t find 
 very many of those people about in general society now 
 adays. But such as are left of them know sufficiently 
 well how to keep up the real character of the stock. 
 Trust them for their marriages." 
 
 " Did you name your ship for her, or for the veritable 
 flower of the field ? " asked Mrs. Brithwaite of Mr. 
 Henslee, standing with him at the door while her car 
 riage was coming up. "She has the colors of the 
 goldenrod, herself." 
 
 Lilian was near the head of the long steps, still with 
 Miss Lucy Henslee, being taken leave of by departing 
 guests with gracious observance. 
 
 The low sunlight through the trees touched her whole 
 figure with a delicate, broken illumination. Her hair 
 caught it in brightly gleaming tints. A golden sparkle 
 shone in her happy, olive-shaded eyes. Tall, in her 
 pretty dress of a soft texture, creamy white in color, 
 with narrow lines of satiny maize stripes, and knots of 
 the same-hued ribbons, with her gentle sway of quiet 
 movement and her natural, unsedulous calm and poise,
 
 THE LAUNCHING OF THE GOLDENBOD. 437 
 
 she was the very impersonation of that life and grace 
 of which as of every human trait and quality some 
 thing or creature does the simple pasture blossom 
 stands an unpretending type. 
 
 "The very colors and the very air" repeated 
 Mrs. Brithwaite, keeping her eyes intently on the un 
 conscious subject of her remark, while Mr. Henslee 
 smiled and said that "things had grouped and illus 
 trated themselves ; but that the same one who had 
 chosen the flower of the field had discovered and 
 brought to them the flower of the family." 
 
 Estabel, herself beautiful in her own appropriate at 
 tire of a heliotrope-hued gown sprinkled with figures of 
 tiny golden stars, had come with Mrs. Brithwaite and 
 Mary to the door, and Mr. Henslee had claimed her 
 with a reaching out of his hand and a drawing of her 
 close beside himself. He pressed her little fingers affec 
 tionately as he spoke. 
 
 Hers closed gratefully to his touch, but she only an 
 swered to Mrs. Brithwaite s comment. 
 
 "I have always thought that Lilian s colors were the 
 colors of the mignonette," she said. 
 
 "And so they are; but if you think of it, the golden- 
 rod has broader shades of just the same ; and to-day, 
 I think, Miss Hawtree is emphatically the goldenrod." 
 
 "My next ship," said Mr. Henslee, with a marked 
 inflection of pride and tenderness, "shall be called the 
 Aster."
 
 CHAPTER LV. 
 
 THE GLADMOTHER IS ORACULAR. 
 
 MR. HENSLEE had invited Dr. North to the launch 
 and lunch. He had taken the trouble to walk over to 
 Clover Street on purpose, and see the doctor at his 
 office. But Ulick had declined with courteous thanks. 
 "A doctor doesn t have time for such things," he said, 
 smiling. "He has to hold himself in readiness for 
 other launchings into the world or out of it." 
 
 "A doctor ought to take time to live." Mr. Henslee 
 looked at the other man with a kindly, tolerating inter 
 est. "You may leave out some important bits of your 
 own history, putting yourself aside so inexorably. " 
 
 Dr. North only answered with another smile, and 
 Mr. Henslee had to say, "Well good-day," and leave 
 it so. 
 
 " He spoke as if he meant something. " Ulick said to 
 himself as he closed the door and went back to his arm 
 chair. "Only he couldn t possibly have anything to 
 mean." 
 
 The next day a neat, careful little note, in a prim, 
 small hand of a fashion two generations old, sealed with 
 a tiny transparent wafer, came to Dr. North in his 
 mail. It ran thus: 
 
 DEAR DR. ULICK NORTH, They say it is not likely 
 you will be at the launch to-morrow. That is a pity, 
 for I think it would interest you and do you good. 
 And besides, I want to see you. Please make a holi 
 day if possible, and come out for a pleasant surprise.
 
 THE GLADMOTHER IS ORACULAR. 439 
 
 Afterward, if you can take the time to call over here, 
 I shall be very much obliged. 
 
 Your attached and grateful old friend, 
 
 REBECCA TRUBIN. 
 
 Ulick North decided that this was a professional call. 
 If he could not go to launches or lunches, he need not 
 neglect an old patient. 
 
 "She doesn t say she needs me, but it may mean 
 more than she says." 
 
 He read over the innocently ambiguous lines, without 
 discovering all their ambiguity. 
 
 "I can skip the shipyard and the party. I can t 
 spare time for everything. But I 11 run down for an 
 hour or so and see the Gladmother. Nobody else 
 that signifies will be at home." 
 
 So by the forenoon train that took a gay crowd out 
 from Topthorpe, landing it at the flag station at Still- 
 wiok Corners, Dr. North went down, taking a seat early 
 at the extreme forward end of the first car, and, avoid 
 ing all chance recognition and encounter, kept on to the 
 Bridge Village terminus, which gave him only a three 
 minutes walk to the Charlock cottage. There would 
 be a return to Topthorpe an hour later, in time for him 
 to keep his afternoon office hours. 
 
 Mrs. Trubin was alone, except for the presence in 
 the house and shop, respectively, of the chorewoman 
 and Eliza Gillespy, who the latter had promised 
 to "see after Mis Trubin, an set with her all she 
 could." Eliza Gillespy would rather, any day, run the 
 shop than see a launch, notwithstanding that in the 
 present instance the conflicting of the two affairs might 
 practically leave the shop for the most part to run 
 itself. 
 
 "Why didn t you stop at the Corners? " the Glad- 
 mother asked Ulick.
 
 440 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Couldn t spare so much time. I came down to see 
 you. " 
 
 "You ve missed something. But I m afraid that s 
 nothing new. You re in the habit of missing things, 
 are n t you? " 
 
 "I suppose we all are. The world is full -of things. 
 And nohody can have all of them." 
 
 " Every body can have all that belongs to that body, " 
 said the Gladmother in her sententious and quaintly 
 accurate English. "And it s just as unfair to be un 
 fair to one s self as not to give other folks their proper 
 rights ; besides rights being so mixed up that you can 
 hardly ever do the one without the other." 
 
 "There doesn t seem to be much of the kind of de 
 frauding that comes by not looking out for number one, 
 I think, as the world goes." 
 
 "There s a terrible deal of it," insisted the Glad- 
 mother. "There s a precious few that know what s 
 best for themselves, let alone taking it. And not know 
 ing, and not taking, is a cheat, every time." 
 
 "There does n t appear to be any way of helping it. " 
 
 "Yes, there s a way, and it s always working; only 
 we won t give it the chance, and take our chances." 
 
 " Did you send for me to tell me that ? " Ulick drew 
 his look inward from the window through which he had 
 been gazing off vaguely, and fixed it with a sudden 
 searchingness upon the Gladmother s quiet face. 
 
 "Well, partly," she answered him. "Only of course 
 I didn t know you would put quite so much upon me. 
 That comes of not being fair to yourself. If you had 
 gone to the launch as the self you are cheating 
 wanted to you would have heard something that I 
 thought you d better hear. It might have made a dif 
 ference. Of course, you d know it before long; I shall 
 tell you now, myself. But all the same, you have n t 
 taken things as they might have come, and that is what 
 always hinders."
 
 THE GLADMOTHER IS ORACULAR. 441 
 
 "You are very oracular, Gladmother. Has any 
 thing happened that can possibly concern me ? " 
 
 He put the question with the effect of a skeptical 
 indifference ; really it was with a reckless forcing from 
 her of the worst at once. 
 
 "Yes. That is, something has happened. The 
 concerning whether or not is your concern. We are 
 all interested. Y^oung Mr. Harrison Henslee and Lilian 
 are engaged. It is to be told to-day." 
 
 "Hoo! " said the doctor. But he said it softly. It 
 did not sound as it probably will be pronounced in the 
 reading. It was a sudden, half-articulated breath, 
 peculiar to himself when a new element, of surprise 
 or of consideration, presented itself to apprehension or 
 reasoning. It was the release of tension ; it left him 
 cool, controlled. 
 
 "I thought it was the other one," he said. 
 
 If Mrs. Trubin, or anybody else, supposed that Ulick 
 North would easily betray all he felt or thought upon 
 the moment, when any unforeseen development occurred, 
 they would have failed to take into the account either 
 his idiosyncrasy or his training. 
 
 But Mrs. Trubin did not need that he should betray. 
 Dr. North might be as cool as water, but to the Glad- 
 mother he was also as transparent. 
 
 " I thought you thought so, " she remarked serenely, 
 and took up her knitting work from off her lap. He 
 was so transparent at that moment that she felt an in 
 stinct of honor not to watch his face. 
 
 Not a feature moved; but like a landscape that had 
 lain in shadow, a light broke over it as if a cloud had 
 passed by from between it and the sun. 
 
 The Gladmother knitted a row, and turned her ivory 
 needle. Then she looked up. 
 
 "Are you glad? " she asked him. 
 
 "Certainly I am glad," he said. "I have not out 
 grown being glad when other people are happy. And I 
 thank you for telling me, Mrs. Trubin."
 
 442 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Ulick North, I am an old woman." 
 
 "As there are but few," he answered, with one of 
 his rarest smiles. 
 
 "And you haven t any grandmother. And there s 
 nobody that can take a liberty with you, unless it s 
 me." 
 
 "A liberty is a thing that depends on the occasion 
 and the need." 
 
 "Now you are oracular. But I suppose it s your 
 business to be, and you don t look fierce. What I 
 want to say is only this : You mean, I think, to be an 
 entirely honest man." 
 
 She stated it; she did not ask it. There was not 
 the slightest rising inflection in her voice. 
 
 "I certainly do intend to be." 
 
 "And to live the truth, plain out? And let it be 
 seen and understood, the whole of it, as the truth ought 
 to be?" 
 
 "Is that invariably possible? The truth is not even 
 to be spoken, at all times." 
 
 "Especially when it has been kept back a good while, 
 and seems to have lost its opportunity ? " 
 
 "You are a very keen woman, Gladmother." 
 
 "I am keen for those I love. You have kept back 
 something, Ulick North, even from yourself or your 
 permission until you don t know whether to allow it, 
 or tell it, or not. And I think you owe it to yourself, 
 and most likely to somebody else not to keep it back 
 much longer." 
 
 Dr. North met the gentle boldness of her look with 
 a singular expression, at once of kindly candor and an 
 unrelinquished reticent control. 
 
 "You are by no means the creature who rushes in, 
 Mrs. Trubin ; but you are clearly not the angel who 
 fears to tread, " he told her. 
 
 "Not where I am led, or sent," she responded.
 
 CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 SHRIFT. 
 
 IT was suddenly as if the axis of the earth had 
 shifted. 
 
 New conditions were to be adapted to, a new course 
 taken. 
 
 Ulick North no longer denied to himself the obvious 
 reality. It had been put to him twice from the out 
 side. Mr. Henslee had said to him, "You may leave 
 out something of your own history, putting yourself by 
 so inflexibly ; " and the Gladmother had fearlessly de 
 clared to him, "You have kept back something that you 
 owe it to yourself and maybe some one else not to 
 keep back much longer. " And his own honest con 
 sciousness, the consciousness of the very gladness that 
 filled his heart in learning that Estabel had not chosen 
 the easy way, and that she "wadna wed the Earlie s 
 son, " for he had never doubted for a moment that 
 she might have done so if she would, compelled him 
 to as honest a conclusion that he must permit the truth 
 within himself, and make it known to her at the right 
 time, to do with as she would. It belonged to her, 
 and she must have it. 
 
 So far was clear; but the right time, and the sure 
 circumstance that could make time right, and the word 
 pertinent ? These were not clear. 
 
 He knew himself; but after all, what did he know 
 of her, except the outside happening ? He had not 
 doubted where the power of choice lay ; but what if he 
 had been mistaken? There had been mistake some-
 
 444 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 where in his conviction of the matter; what if it had 
 been upon that other side ? 
 
 She might have cared for the Earlie s son, that 
 which she had expected might not have come to her; 
 she might not, of her own will, have turned from the 
 easy way; it might have proved the barred, impossible 
 way. And what claim had he to ask, that he might 
 know ? He had held willfully back from claim ; he had 
 shown no personal concern. There would be a long 
 approach to make, to bring him near enough, since he 
 had not kept near when it was too dangerously dear to 
 do so. He called himself a coward and a fool. He 
 had come to his senses, and he could dare, as far as the 
 mere daring went, to be absolutely honest, were it the 
 fair or decent thing to be honest in such a hurry. 
 
 He had not been fair to Estabel, nor to himself. 
 He had the long way back to travel that the mistaken 
 or faulty course devolves upon all wanderers. He could 
 not go to Estabel and say, "I have always loved you." 
 He had done nothing to make it possible for her to 
 believe so late and contradictory a word. 
 
 It would seem now, to a looker-on, as if things might 
 easily come right. A very little incident ought to do 
 it. Providence or a story-teller might so readily put 
 that incident in, and lo! the story would be told. But 
 it is not so simple a matter for a story-teller, or. it 
 would appear, even for Providence, to adjust square 
 pegs. And square pegs are what we have to deal with. 
 Dr. North had got it into his head that not only 
 must he take time and be patient, in order to establish 
 such change of base as would allow him to make further 
 movement consistently with his own character and the 
 respect he owed to Estabel, but a scruple had seized 
 him, a scruple that could have seized no other than just 
 such a man, that to be utterly honest, he must not only 
 take a new attitude, but present himself without the 
 least disguise to this girl s judgment; let her see him as
 
 SHRIFT. 445 
 
 perhaps, if she did so see, any glamour of her partial 
 knowledge might fade away, any half-developed sympa 
 thies might find themselves brought against a barrier, 
 and conscience, or temperament her way of looking at 
 things and accounting their relative importance might 
 interpose against her nearer inclination and his desire. 
 
 Long ago his doubts of her, in herself, had vanished. 
 He had confessed to himself that he had found some- 
 tiling which he had refused to credit as existing; but 
 he had found it existing in a young, unspoiled, untried 
 nature. He had still refused all easy faith that it might 
 survive its inevitable contact with the world, the flesh, 
 and the devil. These were tangible forces, evident 
 every day ; he acknowledged the tangible, and thought 
 he knew in his experience that the unsubstantial fled or 
 yielded before it. He had waited to see if it would so 
 yield in Estabel. But he had seen her grow in grace 
 and moral stature ; he had no longer any personal cavil 
 or contradiction for her. It was at this point that he 
 began, with an instinct that he obeyed without analysis, 
 to feel and shun a danger; and the danger grew, and 
 the shunning became a persistence with him, when he 
 had supposed, with all the rest of her little world, that 
 her life was laid out for her, and that in no way could 
 it be of consequence unless he were weak enough to 
 make it of regretful consequence to him. He had 
 had enough of regrets, enough of weakness; he buckled 
 his armor on against any further shafts of fate, and 
 thought himself not weak, but strong. 
 
 But the doubts of her had sprung from other doubts 
 that had not yet vanished. Exceptions only proved the 
 rule. He was still distrustful, still adrift from happy 
 certainties that he knew she clung to. He was capable 
 of loving her what a leap, almost of anguish, his 
 strong heart gave as he confessed this to himself ! but 
 he was not capable, or ready, to hold fast, with her, that 
 which is so of inmost love that it becomes knowledge, a
 
 446 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 knowledge that needs be mutual in all derived affec 
 tions, or else become a separation. For love that is of 
 inmost demands the inmost. 
 
 He thought she would demand of him this faith ; that 
 she would impute it to him unless he expressly repu 
 diated it. He was too honest to let her do this; he 
 was too honest to agree to believe because other people 
 agreed. He must come to it by conviction. Facts, 
 incongruities, stopped him. The faith of the world 
 seemed to him conventional. 
 
 Once Estabel had said to him, "You believe more, 
 Dr. North, than you are willing to believe." And he 
 had replied with another epigram, "I am willing to 
 believe all there is, but nothing there is not, however 
 much I would like it to be." 
 
 These things he brought up again, of set purpose, in 
 his resumed occasional visits to the Charlock cottage 
 through those early autumn months. He was careful 
 not to make these visits too frequent of occasion, or 
 as he thought of too marked change in character. 
 He came for the Gladmother s asking; it was easy now 
 to come by rail; his stays were brief, but he dropped in 
 among the family as any friendly visitor might. When 
 Dr. North comported himself like other people, he be 
 came more exceptional than he was well aware. 
 
 He was no longer cynical and slighting to others. 
 Estabel found in him a wonderful transformation, or 
 reversion, to a nobility yiat was noble enough to be also 
 sweet. But this appeared in spite of his intent ; he was 
 very severe and unsparing in all voluntary self-presen 
 tation. 
 
 It was never difficult to lead the Gladmother s 
 thought and speech to the inner things. It seemed as 
 if Dr. North did this purposely to declare himself out 
 side. Yet if he had been really and absolutely outside 
 and this Estabel of her keener vision divined he 
 would have made no sign or inquiry at barred doors.
 
 SHRIFT. 447 
 
 They had fragments of talk after this fashion : 
 
 "Belief is what a person would be lief to think," 
 Ulick said one day when they were all together, taking 
 up that word, casually spoken. 
 
 "Just exactly that," the Gladmother agreed, unex 
 pectedly. 
 
 When an adversary drops a bit of argument in that 
 way, the effect is always rather like a step down which 
 one takes as on a supposed level. Dr. North lifted 
 his eyebrows, but said nothing. Mrs. Trubin placidly 
 waited. 
 
 "Then you allow that it is choice ? " Ulick put it to 
 her, after the pause. "That every man can make his 
 own belief? To grant that would go far to stop con 
 troversy, of course." 
 
 "I don t know about that. Everybody would see 
 the same thing in the main, because we re all human, 
 and we all want the same ; but each one would see it 
 differently, and so there would always be dispute. But 
 that wasn t what you said, and I agreed to." 
 
 " Case in point, " laughed the doctor. " I said we 
 believe what we would be willing to have true. I d 
 like it so, and so, belike, it is so. Beliking and be 
 lief are pretty much identical." 
 
 "Aren t believing and beliving more identical? 
 Don t we have to believe what we can t live without? 
 We believe in the air we breathe, but we don t stop 
 to prove it is there before we take it in. Every baby 
 that is born into the world opens its little lungs with 
 that sort of faith. And so is every one that is born of 
 the Spirit." 
 
 "Ah, there you come to facts." Dr. North ac 
 cepted the baby illustration, but postponed the analogy. 
 "Facts are true just as far as they go, but theory is 
 never fact until facts demonstrate it." 
 
 "I think theory and fact are very much like the egg 
 and the chicken," said Estabel. "Which comes first? "
 
 448 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "The outcome of that question is that you can t 
 settle it." 
 
 " Do we need to settle it ? " 
 
 "I don t know. I should think sometimes it settled 
 itself. Depends on whether you re trying to hatch 
 eggs, or raise chickens to lay them. In the meantime, 
 for common reasoning and practical purposes, we want 
 facts first. The universe is built on fact." 
 
 "Maybe there s something facter than fact." 
 
 The Gladmother left the discussion to Estabel with 
 a smile. Ulick North turned more directly to the girl, 
 and answered her quickly. "Factor or fact, I suppose 
 you mean ? " he said. 
 
 "Perhaps I mean the first fact in the First Na 
 ture. Can any work do without theory? Can your 
 profession, for example ? " 
 
 "It s the egg and the chicken again. Theory grows 
 from fact, and presupposes other fact. Theory must 
 find its fact, each way. It cannot prove itself." 
 
 "I suppose God theorized the world before He made 
 it." 
 
 "That may be begging the question. But if He did, 
 the power of proof lay with Him, as we do not find it 
 lies with us." 
 
 "No. We only look on, while He shows; and we 
 say what it seems to say to us." 
 
 "That is the Word," put in the Gladmother softly, 
 as in aside to herself. 
 
 "You define it precisely, Miss Estabel. A theory 
 is a view; in etymological signification, the way some 
 body looks at a thing. Which brings us back; man 
 knows no further than he sees." 
 
 "And sees no further than his nose. Chooty-choo! " 
 
 Miss Charlock was more successful with her antithesis 
 than usual ; probably because she had only half of it to 
 manage. 
 
 Everybody laughed ; the gravity of the debate was 
 broken, and it dropped.
 
 SHRIFT. 449 
 
 Very metaphysical wooing, doubtless, but it was a 
 step in the wooing, none the less ; for Ulick had thus 
 far disburthened his conscience. And Estabel was say 
 ing secretly within herself, "How true he is! How 
 strong he will be for the faith that is in him, when he 
 finds it out ! " 
 
 Another time it was a question of observance. It 
 came up with mention of a great preacher of the day, 
 who was stirring minds and hearts with his fresh, free 
 presentations of the verities of life and of human souls ; 
 bringing these verities face to face, the one to recognize 
 the other. 
 
 Dr. North confessed again. He seized alertly the 
 opportunity of a casual reference to a newspaper para 
 graph concerning the crowds which were filling the 
 splendid church Sunday after Sunday, and the consequent 
 natural inquiry whether he, Ulick, had heard the man. 
 
 "No," he made rough avowal. "I don t run with 
 the machine. I m not a church-goer." 
 
 "One need not always go to church to get the truth," 
 said the Gladmother, refusing to be shocked or remon- 
 strative. "It is always with us. But we want the 
 reminders. That is why the Bible is the Book of 
 Life." 
 
 "I m not much of a Bible reader, either," persisted 
 the doctor. "That is, as a matter of routine or obliga 
 tion. I ve rather an idea that there s a Bible in every 
 man s experience, as he goes along." 
 
 "That was how the Bible got written, aforetime, 
 for our learning, " remarked the Gladmother quietly. 
 "A ship s captain takes an observation every day," she 
 added, with a keen, kind look over her glasses at Ulick. 
 
 "Yes. To find out where he is. Morally, we need 
 not be at a loss. We have conscience." 
 
 "The captain has his chronometer." 
 
 Estabel s eyes shone, and she took up the word.
 
 450 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "We can t live by dead reckoning, you see. We 
 want the sun and stars." 
 
 Ulick North regarded her with something more of 
 intensity than he was aware. 
 
 "Yes, we want the stars. Thank God, we have 
 them. The heavens set the watch for us, after all. I 
 allow that. But I don t quite admit the parallel. 
 There s a vast deal of mechanical repetition, and not 
 a little heaving to in mid-course, for soundings that 
 don t sound, and observance that isn t true heavenly 
 observation. I object to formalities, and concessions 
 to a mere established expectation. So I have got out 
 of the way for that reason, and from other causes 
 of public worshiping. At least, " he added lightly, 
 " I escape being a Pharisee so far as in not going up 
 to the temple to pray." 
 
 "The temple and the closet are God s place in 
 ourselves. We can t keep out of that," replied the 
 Gladmother. 
 
 "I d rather hear you preach than Dr. Freehold," 
 said Ulick gently-. "All the same, I don t pretend to 
 be a religious man, after the common understanding. 
 I m too busy living." 
 
 "That s very good religion as far as it goes," was 
 the Gladmother s placid rejoinder. 
 
 Plainly, she would not be shocked, if he had wished 
 to shock her. She lived too broadly in her own whole 
 nature. 
 
 "But " she went on, emphasizing the little con 
 junction with which she linked to her admission the 
 completing half of its perfect truth "a good work 
 man looks to his Master all the time." 
 
 "He isn t all the time talking to him," Ulick main 
 tained, as nearly with a scoff as would have been sincere 
 to his real mood. "A soldier doesn t ask questions 
 or make explanations in the ranks. His duty is in 
 doing. And he doesn t need, nor expect, to get his
 
 SHRIFT. 451 
 
 orders over and over, or to reason out to his own satis 
 faction the whole plan of the campaign. He just 
 marches and fights, according to the moment s com 
 mand." 
 
 "As far as that goes," the old lady repeated, "it is 
 good religion. But it isn t the whole, or the happiest, 
 of our concern with the Lord. There, we have privi 
 leges. Every man is a special one with Him, and not 
 just a piece of the rank and file. He asks us to come 
 and tell Him things. He means to show us all things 
 that He does. He isn t too great to take us into his 
 confidence; He wants us to understand Him. He is 
 telling us of Himself all the time, and how can we help 
 telling ourselves back ? " 
 
 "Isn t life speech? And an infinite knowledge 
 might preclude, one would think, our telling." 
 
 Again P^stabel s eyes flashed up. Again there was 
 something on her lips to say, but she hesitated in the 
 saying. Dr. North s look met hers, and held it. 
 
 " Well ? " he asked her, and his tone claimed her 
 thought, gently, but with an eagerness. He had not 
 seemed to be watching her, but he had lost no change 
 nor stir of her face ; he had felt her reception of every 
 word. How else, when all through whatever talk it 
 was his heart seeking to lay itself open to the verdict 
 of hers ? 
 
 "I was thinking," she answered him slowly, "it 
 seemed to me so very simple. If you cared very much 
 for anybody, and they cared very much for you, and 
 all your life was more or less influenced by them, " 
 in her effort at impersonality she quite freed herself 
 from all bondage to pronouns, "would you be willing 
 to go through the world without any direct saying 
 of it ? " 
 
 "It might not be possible for me to do otherwise," 
 Dr. North replied, with a suddenness and a certain 
 curious shifting of tone, as quitting abstract argument to
 
 452 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 confront the personal application. "Circumstances 
 or my nature might not allow." 
 
 "There s one thing pretty likely to be certain," said 
 Estabel, cheerfully incognizant. "People who don t 
 speak easily mean more when they do speak than those 
 who are talking all the time." 
 
 She looked up at him with a gay, frank triumph, as 
 if she had pierced through his armor of antagonism, 
 and understood himself better than his cavil. 
 
 It gave him a sudden pleasant sense of absolution. 
 
 He had discharged his conscience; it might be he 
 need not cavil so very scrupulously much more. 
 
 And, somehow, the passing of a certain resolved ten 
 sion from the set of his features, and the overspread of 
 a quiet relaxation, were more to her than word or actual 
 smile in answer. 
 
 He did not know that he had answered ; he shut the 
 response within himself, recalling himself altogether 
 from the discussion ; and after his peculiar fashion al 
 ready noted said something quite irrelevant and com 
 monplace, that was very like the dropping of a latch 
 when one has closed a door. 
 
 "Do you clearly comprehend that man?" Aunt Es 
 ther asked of Mrs. Trubin that day when he had gone. 
 
 "Some ways, I do," the old lady answered. 
 
 " Must be precious little ways, seems to me, " re 
 turned Miss Charlock. "He s mighty deliberate. 
 When folks get good an ready, things ain t always 
 pat, according; and things don t always come accord 
 ing, just when folks get good an ready. Guess my 
 cake needs turning." And with these semi-detached 
 utterances she departed to her kitchen.
 
 CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 LADY OF HENSLEIGH. 
 
 No one could mistake the meaning of Estabel s 
 bright face and buoyant bearing in these days of wedding 
 preparation for anything but their direct, innocent sig 
 nificance, a pure pleasure and an infinite content. The 
 theory of any possible personal disappointment or set 
 ting aside of self in sacrifice fell to pieces of its own 
 weight. It was not so inevitable that the sign should 
 be read clear through. She did not stop to read it so 
 herself. Everything beautiful had come easily to pass, 
 so far ; the future was full of beautiful peradventures 
 hastening on their way. Our moods are both prescient 
 and reflective ; the touching of a single chord, of pain 
 or joy, echoes all that we have known, or rings on to 
 all we hope, of either ; and sometimes the touch is such 
 a slight and subtle thing that we know not why we are 
 either sad or gay. 
 
 Estabel did not ask, and nobody about her guessed, 
 what was the happy secret behind her happiness just 
 now. A bird in her bosom stirred softly, and sang ; that 
 was all, not its whole song ; only the little pulsing 
 music of the waiting notes that should make the perfect 
 melody; a breathing of them under breath, as the bird 
 twitters in the nest at daybreak. 
 
 Why was not the keynote given to which it would 
 have fully waked and answered ? 
 
 Why was not somebody, in Aunt Esther s quaint 
 and homely phrasing, "good and ready" while every 
 thing was so " according " ?
 
 454 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Why should the life music have had to hush itself 
 again in a repressive doubt ? 
 
 Dr. North was content, also ; he was not refusing 
 his own life obstinately any more, as he had done. He 
 was only giving it time, he thought, to come reasonably 
 and fairly to its fulfillment. A little longer, and he 
 would speak, if no further forbidding silenced him. It 
 was pleasant to drift, just now, with all these pleasant 
 things, as if they might not, after all, be discrepant 
 with his own faring and allotment. He would not 
 startle Estabel, nor risk his hope, by inconsistent pre 
 cipitation ; let this present engrossment have its day, 
 and pass on ; by and by might come a day that should 
 be all theirs; he would wait the fitting, more confident 
 time; for the now, he was content. 
 
 So he proposed, and made no reckoning of other 
 strange disposal. 
 
 The wedding was as simple as a wedding could be. 
 Various suggestions had been made about it ; it had 
 been a little difficult to plan with perfect suitableness 
 and due regard to circumstance. House or church 
 Topthorpe or Stillwick the world kept out or the 
 world let in these were questions that had to be set 
 tled, and that did not in the ordinary ways settle them 
 selves. 
 
 Mrs. Brithwaite had asked Lilian and the Glad- 
 mother to come to her for a visit in which all needed 
 preparation could be made, and which the ceremony 
 should conclude. This came nearest to satisfaction of 
 anything, save what was finally decided. It was the 
 Gladmother who at last put the matter in clear, posi 
 tive light. 
 
 "I think," she said to Harry, "that you don t need 
 to build a bridge. Your life and hers have met. You 
 take her where you find her, and you just lead her over 
 the line. Then you will both be at home, in your own
 
 LADY OF HENSLEIGH. 455 
 
 place, and the new way of living will begin. Is n t the 
 best way to do a thing the straightest? Lilian hasn t 
 anybody but me, and she has no home but this, where 
 we have been made welcome together; but a bride goes 
 out from her own family and home to be a wife, and 
 not from the home of any third person, if it can be 
 helped, and of all third persons, if we had to think of 
 it in that way, Miss Charlock has the right." 
 
 And Harry and his father and Miss Henslee all 
 agreed that the Gladmother s word was the fit one, and 
 not to be gainsaid. 
 
 Stillwick was so beautiful in that sweet Indian sum 
 mer weather ! All through November it was prolonged, 
 and lent itself graciously to the plans that took shape 
 readily enough, around the one fixed point, as plans do, 
 when that is given. 
 
 They were married at the cottage. The world waited. 
 Its time was not quite yet. The rector of the little 
 church in Topthorpe where the Gladniother and Lilian 
 had attended, where Lilian had been taught in Sunday 
 school, and later been confirmed in the inheritance of 
 Christ s "whole blessed company," came down to join 
 their hands and pronounce the priestly sanction. 
 
 Only Mrs. Brithwaite p.nd Mary and Ulick North, 
 from Topthorpe ; and Miss Eliza Gillespy, with a few 
 other Stillwick friends the kind old doctor and the 
 village pastor, with their wives, the good minis 
 ter being given an "assisting" bit of the service, and 
 astonished by what he afterward found in the envelope 
 slipped into his hand were present, in addition to the 
 family on each side. 
 
 Miss Charlock s modest rooms were fresh with pure 
 white hangings, and lovely with rare flowers sent in a 
 great hamper by the bridegroom. The parlor fireplace 
 was filled with chrysanthemums, white and golden ; 
 over this the mantel was banked with roses ; clusters and 
 wreaths of blossoms and greenery knotted the window
 
 456 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 draperies and fell lightly among their delicate folds. 
 In the kitchen beyond, transformed for the service, 
 all the evidences of coarser occupation were hidden be 
 neath and behind similar screenings, and the pretty 
 table, not wanting in fine old furnishings, stood in the 
 midst, with the wedding cake and wine, and more sub 
 stantial viands for those who had come the longer way, 
 or any who might find such acceptable. There was no 
 pretense, but daintiness and dignity the dignity that 
 conies of unpretense had met together. Sweet au 
 tumn airs and odors and fair, bright sunshine stole in 
 everywhere, and wafted through, and made the little 
 place like the heart of an encircling fragrance and 
 beauty, as is the heart of a blossom to its corolla. 
 
 And all the beautiful world, with its hope and pro 
 mise, reaching out from this dear, quiet centre, was 
 theirs this day. 
 
 The bridegroom and the company waited in the 
 flower-garlanded room. The Gladmother s chair stood 
 in the western window. Over it hung a tassel cluster 
 of her prisms, dropping from among the sprays of rose 
 and smilax, held by a loop of white satin ribbon. 
 Through these the first westering sunbeam slanted, and 
 then flung across the corner where the wedding group 
 would stand soft streams of color that fell among the 
 roses on the mantel and burned upward from them in 
 flame of red and gold, plume-tipped with vivid green 
 and heavenly violet, such as no altar-light could radiate 
 in compare. 
 
 There were steps upon the stairway, a soft rustle 
 of women s gowns. A quiet-faced old lady in a snowy 
 cap and full, soft bosom-lace, with a delicate white 
 shawl over her black silk robing, stood in the entrance. 
 Just behind her was a glimpse as of a floating, fleecy 
 cloud. 
 
 Mr. Henslee, standing near, moved forward, offering 
 his arm, and led the Gladmother to her place beside
 
 LADY OF HENSLEIGH. 457 
 
 her chair. Harry met his bride upon the threshold, 
 took her hand in his, and side by side they slowly 
 walked across the floor, Estabel and Aunt Esther fol 
 lowing at unobtrusive distance, and ranging themselves 
 near, but not in evidence as with, the marriage party. 
 The clergyman, in his white surplice, stood in the angle 
 of the room that had been draped across with some soft 
 hanging of deep maroon, flanked either way with tall 
 chrysanthemum plants, making it like a tiny chancel. 
 Before him, on a long, low cushion, the bridal pair 
 knelt for a moment, then rose up, and the service 
 began. 
 
 While the solemn, beautiful words were spoken, all 
 hearts stirred, yet all eyes observed. A marriage cere 
 mony is a heavenly reality in such external type as 
 earth can make most heavenly. A woman is never 
 nearer apparent angelhood than at this one supreme 
 moment of her life. And I suppose if one saw a vision 
 of angels, one would see, desiring to know what angels 
 look like, and not listen only. Saint John in the 
 Apocalypse took notice of the white robes and the 
 wings. 
 
 Never was bride more bridelike than sweet Lilian 
 Hawtree, in the moment when she was ceasing to be 
 Lilian Hawtree and taking her foretokened name and 
 place as "Lady of Hensleigh." 
 
 She had found some shimmery, sheeny stuff of silken 
 tissue ; lacelike, with little spots of satin weft delicately 
 dropped upon it ; it was like gossamer sprinkled with 
 dew. Of this she had made both gown and veil; not 
 preposterously long, to drag reluctant yards behind as 
 if protestant against some half intent, or absurdly to 
 fill the comparatively small spaces of Aunt Esther s 
 house. The folds swept lightly off a little way and 
 made their own soft circle on the floor, needing no 
 tirewoman s last touch at the doorway nor a maid of 
 honor s cunning adjustment at the turning round; the
 
 458 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 veil fell back from the bright hair upon which it rested, 
 fastened on one side by a clustering spray of starry 
 jessamine, and on the other with a diamond pin, the 
 gift of the elder Mr. Henslee, and reached only a grace 
 ful length as veil, and not as robing. Jessamine flowers 
 were her lovely breastknot ; she carried nothing in her 
 hands. There was nothing to relieve her of; she wore 
 no glove, even, to be taken off. A sweet, simple girl, 
 in simple, natural array, she stood there ; all herself, 
 and the quiet sincere expression of herself, and not a 
 mysterious something hidden in a heap of millinery. It 
 was herself, not any apparition or disguise of herself, 
 that she was going to give, and that without hesitation, 
 or hamper of useless technicality. There was nothing 
 that had needed the mockery of a "rehearsal." 
 
 For the formal bestowal, there was the stately sweet 
 old Gladmother, who at the word stepped softly to her 
 child, and laid her hand in Harry s; then the measured 
 tones of the clergyman, and the full echo of Harry s 
 voice, and the clear low repetition of Lilian s in turn, 
 went on. And in the few instants in which the most 
 momentous things is that why they are called so ? 
 do oftenest transpire, it was all done, and the gentle 
 village pastor blessed them with upraised hands, in the 
 name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost. 
 
 There was no orchestral or organ march, from Men 
 delssohn or Wagner ; only a sweet silence for a moment, 
 as the pair turned happy solemnized faces to each other 
 first with their new greeting, and then to the nearest 
 and dearest of the friendly company. Loving embraces, 
 a gentle buzz of congratulation and good wishes, and 
 presently relief from tender strain in pleasant, common 
 talk. 
 
 An hour later nearly all were gone. Lilian, with 
 Estabel to help her, had withdrawn and laid aside her 
 dreamlike bridal draperies, putting on instead a gown 
 of some soft woolen, pale olive-gray, fastened at throat
 
 LADY OF HENSLEIGH. 459 
 
 and belt with golden clasps ; and with a light cloak of 
 corresponding color over her arm, and a hat with olive 
 ribbons and a tuft of goldenrod which her own fingers 
 had fashioned, hung upon her wrist, had come down 
 again to say a short, sweet good-by to those who had 
 the last, lingering right; and had simply walked with 
 Harry through the open house and out at the garden door, 
 whence the footpath led off into the orchard and down 
 the brookside. By themselves they followed the still fra 
 grant way beneath the pines, where they had first met, 
 and begun to love, and where the love had been con 
 fessed. 
 
 And it was in the golden twilight of a serenely fad 
 ing day, that they came together up the lawn to the 
 open entrance and the waiting, eager welcome and 
 service of house and faithful household at old Henslee 
 Place. 
 
 Dr. North had lingered with the Gladmother. She 
 had said, "Don t go," when the carriage guests were 
 all departing. And he had looked at his watch and 
 seen that there was yet half an hour before his train, 
 and had waited, with the complaisance that in him 
 meant a very sure complacence. 
 
 When he did take leave, Aunt Esther and Estabel 
 went out with him upon the doorstone. 
 
 Aunt Esther said good-by, and then as with some 
 sudden thought betook herself inside again. Estabel 
 found herself, she hardly knew how, walking down the 
 little pathway under the elms at Ulick s side. He had 
 moved forward without saying the final good-by that 
 would have left her where she stood. 
 
 "Hasn t it been a lovely time? " she asked him. It 
 might have been perfunctory, by way of saying some 
 thing; but her face was all abrim with tranquil glad 
 ness, that spoke the strong, pervading sense out of which 
 only some such words could come.
 
 460 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 He looked down at her, reading the truth of her de 
 light ; and his own feeling of the joy and heauty let 
 itself respond. 
 
 "It has heen a wedding not a parade," he said. 
 "It has been as such things should be." 
 
 They were at the gate, but he still paused, with his 
 hand upon the rail. 
 
 " And so they are going off in the Goldenrod ? " he 
 interrogated. 
 
 "Yes. It is to be an ideal voyage; more like a 
 yachting than a merchant trip, though they are to 
 carry cargo, too, of course ; there will be a stop for 
 landing that and taking on another; but they are to 
 cruise a little besides; back through the West Indies 
 in the pleasant weather there, and so on home into our 
 springtime. It s all summer with them now," she 
 ended, with a little ring in her voice that was very 
 joyous, yet with the touch joy has of feeling close to 
 happy tears. 
 
 "Has not the Gladmother been beautiful? " she hur 
 ried to say further, for a difference. 
 
 "She does not think of herself," said Dr. North. 
 
 " She declares she does ; and that is why she wants 
 it all just so. She told them they could not leave her 
 if they tried; she was going, too. Why shouldn t I 
 have my share of it ? Why should you wait till I am 
 done with everything or till it seems so ? For she 
 never will allow that anybody is ever done with the 
 least bit of their life. And as to this winter, what 
 winter could I spare you better from just the speaking 
 and the seeing? I shall be older next year, and the 
 next; the longer you wait, the more you will be afraid. 
 Go, and have a good time, for me to enjoy with you. 
 I couldn t get it any other way. That was how she 
 talked to them, and how it was all settled." 
 
 "It would be nice if there were enough such selfish 
 ness in the world to settle everything so, " Dr. North
 
 LADY OF HENSLEIGH. 461 
 
 answered, still looking into the uplifted face, not heed 
 ing how the visor was down from before his own, in 
 which a strange, unwonted tenderness was shining. 
 
 Estabel took it all to mean his understanding of the 
 beautiful Gladmother. It was so good to see him quite 
 understand a thing like that ! And yet there was some 
 thing that made her still hurry on, with other change 
 of word. 
 
 "They sail on the nineteenth. Won t you be there 
 to see them off with us ? " 
 
 "Yes. I will be there with you, " said Dr. North; 
 and he pushed open the little gate. There was no time, 
 nor fittingness, for more speech now. He said good 
 night and walked away. 
 
 Estabel stood still under the trees. 
 
 "He is growing willing, I do believe, to behave him 
 self with me. He talks to me as he would to anybody 
 else ! " 
 
 She thought it, in those words, in that way. A 
 great bound of exultation was in her heart. She sup 
 posed she was blessedly content to think just that.
 
 CHAPTER LVIIL 
 
 THE SAILING OF THE GOLDENROD. 
 
 DOWN at L wharf the carriages of gay people gath 
 ered again and stood in waiting. 
 
 The delicious weather had lasted ; the hlue of the 
 sky melted down to the horizon rim where the far water 
 of the bay made its deeper line against it. The Golden- 
 rod had been hauled around the pier, from within the 
 angle of the L, and lay beside its outer inverted arm. 
 The tide had just turned, and was sweeping outward ; 
 a westerly breeze was blowing. Windlass and halyards 
 were manned ; the captain stood upon the af terdeck, 
 alert, supreme, holding his watched-for word to the 
 precise instant. By the bulwark, shoreward, were Lilian 
 and Harry, and Mr. Henslee, who would go down the 
 harbor with them. Above them floated again the blue 
 diamond, the union jack, the barque s bright signal, and 
 the stars and stripes. 
 
 " Heave away ! " And the men at the capstan bent 
 to their bars ; the chain rattled through the hawse-hole ; 
 the anchor was hoisted and cat-headed. Without pause 
 came rapid orders, that only the sailors comprehended, 
 but to which the winged vessel fluttered out all her 
 sudden bravery like a splendid moth unfolding from its 
 chrysalis ; the white sails were run up to their yards, 
 with a " chock ablock and belay ; " they swelled out 
 with the gentle wind ; the great H in the foretopsail 
 showed grandly clear upon the smooth-stretched sheet ; 
 a cheer went up from the wharf ; with, and above all, 
 rattling and hauling and call and cheer, rang the
 
 THE SAILING OF THE GOLDENROD. 463 
 
 lusty chorus of the crew, singing as they answered to 
 command with tug and strain, 
 
 " Oh, the Goldenrod is taut and fine, 
 The dandy ship of the Diamond Line." 
 
 And down into the stream she swept, the two young 
 figures standing in the stern for lingering exchange of 
 loving watch and waving sign ; and with wind and tide 
 and well-set canvas she moved on, swift and statelily, in 
 outset of her fair, bright voyage, toward the warm gulf 
 waters, and into the vigorous, waiting trades, and the 
 splendid tropics. 
 
 And then the little admiring, friendly crowd upon 
 the wharf broke up, and the carriages drove away, and 
 Estabel went back to Casino Crescent with Miss Hens- 
 lee. 
 
 And Dr. North had not been there. 
 
 A whim ? Or a patient ? Dr. North was liable to 
 both, but it had been neither. 
 
 He had come back from a second round of visits; the 
 first had been made very early, before his morning office 
 hour, to urgent cases; the last had just left him time 
 for some renewal of his toilet and to reach L wharf a 
 little before the hour of sailing. As he brushed his hat 
 and took up his gloves, the bell rang. He met the 
 comer upon his doorstep, his intent of departure evi 
 dent, to say nothing of a slight frown of interruption that 
 involuntarily drew his brows together. 
 
 " I am afraid I must excuse myself, unless " then 
 he looked the visitor full in the face, and recognized 
 him, although he was a person he had seldom seen. 
 "Oh, Mr. Steeples, I believe? I have an appointment; 
 but if a few minutes will serve you please walk in. " 
 
 Mr. Steeples came in, silent, solemn. 
 
 "A few minutes will serve," he said, when the door 
 had been shut, and Dr. North had motioned him to a
 
 464 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 chair. "But my errand will involve more than that 
 later, and some very unexpected consequences. My late 
 partner your uncle I grieve to tell you, was in that 
 terrible railway accident in the south of France three 
 weeks ago which we read of a few days since. I have 
 letters by the English steamer just arrived, from our 
 consul at Marseilles. They were on their way to Pau 
 for the winter. I suppose you know they passed the 
 summer in the Tyrol, after their travels last year in 
 Italy and the East. They would probably have come 
 home in the spring." 
 
 Mr. Steeples had prolonged his circumstantial state 
 ment, to give Ulick time. Now he sat silent again, but 
 with the air of a man who has yet more to say. 
 
 Dr. North was severely shocked by the sudden an 
 nouncement. Like all persons of carefully guarded feel 
 ing, the thrust against which he braced himself ran the 
 deeper. For a minute or two he was silent also, and 
 Mr. Steeples waited. Then, when Ulick did not speak, 
 he began again. 
 
 "It is a great blow to us all," he said. 
 
 "Where is Mrs. Clymer?" Ulick asked him calmly. 
 He felt no need to express his sense of personal pain 
 and loss to this man of business, to whom Mr. Clymer 
 had been only his "late partner." 
 
 "Mrs. Clymer died in Marseilles a few days after," 
 Mr. Steeples replied. "She had been ill at Nice; and 
 the horrible shock and some bodily injury that might 
 not otherwise have proved fatal well, it was the end ; 
 they re both gone ! " 
 
 Mr. Steeples emphasized those last words. They 
 involved the later and very weighty practical conse 
 quences to which he had transiently adverted, and which 
 he left to suggest themselves at leisure to Dr. Ulick 
 North, in their natural order; as in legal course they 
 would certainly with brief delay be set before him in 
 his position as next of kin. Whatever, more or less, he
 
 THE SAILING OF THE GOLDENROD. 465 
 
 might himself know of the particular provisions of the 
 peculiar document to which his name afterward appeared 
 appended as witness, it seemed wiser and more decorous 
 to hint nothing in anticipation, beyond the fact which 
 might be taken for granted. 
 
 As he turned with his foot upon the sidewalk for that 
 gesture and word of final leavetaking which people are 
 apt to supplement, he said briefly : 
 
 "Undoubtedly there is a will. Perhaps two. Mrs. 
 Clymer, I believe, had something of her own, apart 
 from whatever " He left that sentence broken. He 
 could not baldly speak of what might have accrued to 
 her right in those few, widowed, dying days. "You 
 will probably hear from his lawyers, Lylowe and 
 Spring. Good-day. " 
 
 Dr. North went back into his office and sat down.
 
 CHAPTER LIX. 
 
 INHERITANCE. 
 
 CHANGE was crowded. Mr. Henslee could not walk 
 up the street without encountering the news from a 
 dozen lips. Topthorpe was stirred in its business cen 
 tre. Abel Clymer was a man who would be missed 
 here ; and there was a horror in the violent, sudden 
 death, which men were hardly yet inured to putting 
 aside so easily as they seem to do to-day. People were 
 not crushed or drowned or burned up quite so often, 
 or so by wholesale, then. 
 
 There was hardly such a strenuous hum of eager talk 
 as ordinarily along the curbstones ; there was not much 
 lifting of sharp, quick tone, or breaking forth of occa 
 sional laughter at shrewd jokes. A hand was laid upon 
 the strings. 
 
 Mr. Henslee passed on and across to his home in 
 Casino Crescent with a slow step and a troubled heart. 
 He was thinking of the little girl there, fresh from her 
 happy participation in the joy of the setting off, that 
 was yet tender with the sense of parting, and of that 
 human uncertainty against which our prayers go up for 
 those who leave us on whatever glad and hopeful errand. 
 He had noted a grave little curve of the lip that told 
 of some such qualifying of keen pleasure, as Estabel had 
 turned away from the deserted pier and gone back to 
 the carriage with Miss Lucy. 
 
 He would tell his sister; but Estabel should not be 
 told to-day. One of her homes was gone ; one of only 
 two near relatives was taken from her. Whatever of
 
 INHERITANCE. 467 
 
 essential sympathy might have heen sometimes lacking 
 between her Aunt Vera and herself however uncon 
 genial in certain ways a home with her might have been, 
 she would feel this sadly ; the more sadly, he knew, 
 that there had not heen that perfect love which not only 
 casteth out fear, but the sharpest pain of such regret. 
 
 No ; she should not be told to-day ; she should not 
 have everything to bear at once. 
 
 And even as he thought so, the "consequences " and 
 the questions of them, that must come, occurred to him. 
 She must soon know, and she must soon aet. On one 
 side and the other, she and Ulick North represented 
 all that in common course of affairs would result from 
 this double death. 
 
 And Abel Clymer had died first. The man of affairs 
 discerned in a single mental glance how things might be. 
 
 He was not surprised when, a few days later, after 
 Estabel had calmed and been comforted from her first 
 distress, word came from Messrs. Lylowe and Spring 
 of the necessity for attending to the matters of the es 
 tate. They had in their possession the will of the late 
 Abel Clymer, Esq., executed before his departure for 
 Europe ; the parties interested, and to be duly served 
 with copies, were Ulysses North, physician, of Top- 
 thorpe, as heir-at-law and under the will of said Abel 
 Clymer, and Estabel Charlock, next of kin and heir to 
 estate of Perseverance Clymer, wife of the aforesaid. 
 A meeting would be held at such place as the parties 
 might desire, preliminary to the offering of the will for 
 probate. 
 
 And in the library of Mr. Henslee in Casino Cres 
 cent, in the presence of these formal, legal men, and 
 with only the kind friend and host to feel with and for 
 them the overshadowing solemnity of the call that 
 brought them so together, Ulick and Estabel met for 
 the first time since that wedding afternoon when they
 
 468 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 had stood by the gate under the great elms at Stillwick, 
 and Ulick had said, meaning it so differently, "Yes; I 
 will he there with you. " 
 
 It was a curious, short will which Mr. Lylowe read 
 aloud to them. 
 
 After the usual preliminaries it ran thus: "I leave 
 to my dear wife, Perseverance Clymer, my house on 
 Mount Street, Topthorpe, with all household furnish 
 ings, hooks, pictures, plate, and all works of art or 
 ornament, there or elsewhere. And of all other estate 
 of which I may die possessed, real, personal and mixed, 
 I leave to the said Perseverance Clymer, my wife, one 
 clear and undivided half, to her sole use, behoof, and 
 disposal. 
 
 "And I leave one clear and undivided half of all my 
 estate, real, personal, and mixed, after the deduction 
 of the house in Mount Street, the furnishings, books, 
 pictures, plate, etc., as aforesaid and bequeathed, to 
 my nephew, Ulysses North, out of which estate he is 
 to pay, first, all my lawful debts and obligations ; sec 
 ond, all moral liabilities which, according to his theories 
 of use and possession, and his acute sense of radical 
 justice, he may feel that I have overlooked or neglected, 
 and that should consequently be imposed upon the same. 
 I lay upon the said Ulysses North the whole trust and 
 responsibility and discretionary power of executing this 
 intent and charge. And any residue that, after the 
 fulfillment of these conditions, may remain of said half 
 of my estate so intrusted to the said Ulysses North, 
 shall be retained by him for his own sole use and dis 
 posal. 
 
 "With these bequests, I leave to all my affectionate 
 good- will and wishes." 
 
 There was a silence in the room when the lawyer 
 ceased his reading. Ulick North s lips were com 
 pressed ; there was a whiteness about them, but his 
 eyes were clear and calm. He sat absolutely still.
 
 INHERITANCE. 469 
 
 Estabel glanced from one to another with a fright 
 ened, half-comprehending look. 
 
 " What does it all mean ? " Her question broke the 
 pause tremulously, as she turned to Mr. Henslee in dis 
 tressed appeal. 
 
 Mr. Lylowe took two folded papers from the table 
 beside him, and arose. Dr. North rose also, as the 
 lawyer approached him, tendering one. 
 
 " It means, for my part, " he said distinctly, " that 
 my uncle has given me a test for myself. I accept the 
 challenge and the trust." He quietly put the paper into 
 the inside pocket of his coat, and remained standing 
 where he was, as though only waiting, business being 
 ended, to take proper leave. 
 
 "It means, my dear young lady," said Mr. Lylowe 
 as he came before Estabel and held to her the second 
 copy of the document, "that through your aunt, who 
 survived her husband by several days, and who has left 
 no will, you inherit by law a very handsome pro 
 perty. On that point I congratulate you." 
 
 "Oh, don t! " cried out the girl, as if he had struck 
 her a blow. "I don t understand it yet, but it can t 
 be right. It is not mine. I cannot take it. It ought 
 all to go to Dr. North, except the little property that 
 was Aunt Vera s before." 
 
 "I don t think you can give it up, my dear," Mr. 
 Henslee said to her, in a low, soothing tone. "At any 
 rate, it is of no use to say so now. The proper forms 
 must be gone through; then we will talk about it." 
 
 The lawyer had to lay the paper in her lap ; she ex 
 tended no hand to take it. Mr. Henslee lifted it up 
 and rose, giving his arm to Estabel. "You have had 
 enough to-day, little girl, " he said, with a tender light 
 ness. "We will go to Cousin Lucy now." 
 
 Ulick stood before them as they reached the door. 
 
 "It is precisely as my uncle meant it should be. It 
 is perfectly clear and fair and unalterable. "
 
 470 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 He held out his hand to Estabel. She put hers 
 within it, and looked up at him with a helpless remorse. 
 His face was as quiet as his words. The touch of his 
 hand was kind, not warm. 
 
 A distance had stretched out again between these two. 
 Perhaps it had been meant otherwise, but a word from 
 the grave had separated them again. 
 
 "How stern he is! And how can I ever make him 
 understand me, now? " was in Estabel s thought as she 
 passed up the stairs out of his sight. 
 
 How could he tell Estabel Charlock now that he loved 
 her? 
 
 That question smote upon Ulick North its interdict 
 as he left the house. 
 
 The lawyer gathered up his papers. Mr. Henslee 
 came down to offer courteous leave-taking. 
 
 "There might be one very pretty way of making all 
 this straight," said Mr. Lylowe, as he buttoned up his 
 coat in the hall. 
 
 "If that pretty way were ever open, I m afraid it 
 is closed now, " Mr. Henslee answered. 
 
 Mr. Lylowe shrugged his shoulders. "I suppose one 
 can guess, but I can t see clearly what it s all about. 
 Will North get anything, or nothing, in the winding 
 up?" 
 
 "That will depend upon his understanding of the 
 conditions, and their limit, " replied Mr. Henslee. 
 
 "He strikes me as a fellow who will take the stiffest 
 possible way of meeting things." 
 
 "And perhaps the hardest for himself. There are 
 such men in the world, " rejoined the merchant ; and 
 the man of formula and tape departed.
 
 CHAPTER LX. 
 
 COMFORT AND COUNSEL. 
 
 IT was as if an avalanche had fallen into Estabel 
 Charlock s quiet life. The face of everything was 
 changed. She stood as in the middle of an overthrow, 
 not knowing how to extricate herself, or how to recon 
 cile and adapt herself to new conditions. What had 
 not been destroyed was jarred, shaken. She felt as if 
 she could hold fast to nothing nothing, that is, to 
 which any new tendrils of her growth and being were 
 reaching out ; nothing that had to do with plan and 
 purpose. 
 
 And it had all begun with such a tragedy ! A sorrowful 
 thing, upon which other things so pressed and hurried 
 that they would not give her time and place fitly to 
 think of it and be sorry. 
 
 Her Aunt Vera had written her not very infre 
 quently, but when the letters came they had been full 
 of place and circumstance and little detail, in name and 
 on the surface ; transitions hither and thither ; practical 
 accommodation or inconvenience ; general phrases of de 
 scription ; not much dwelt on minutely except person 
 alities and the ever-growing catalogue of wonderful pur 
 chases, the opportunity and way of them ; garments ; 
 household stuffs ; curios, eagerly commented upon for 
 their genuineness and rarity; such as "hardly anybody 
 else, in our country, at least, could boast of having and 
 would be invaluably attractive to the most superior class 
 of persons ; " pictures, after the same order and ap 
 praisal; jewels "Uncle Abel had been so generous to
 
 472 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 her; he had wanted to buy almost everything; they 
 should come home laden with precious things, and a 
 great many boxes and cases were already on their way, 
 consigned to their home agents." All this had op 
 pressed Estabel in the mere recital. Now the whole 
 burden of possession and administration was falling 
 upon her heart and hands. 
 
 And Aunt Vera who had been so kind, so loving 
 in her way, so generous with bestowal of all that she 
 accounted benefit had gone away from all with empty 
 hands, into would it be to her light or darkness ? 
 
 The last news had been from the Tyrol. They had 
 traveled through Russia in the early summer. Mrs. 
 Clymer was not only bringing home curios and splen 
 dors, but a record of accomplishment of unusual routes 
 Nishni-Novgorod, the Great Fair oh, the magnifi 
 cent Siberian sables, and the exquisite malachites and 
 aquamarines that Mr. Clymer had bought for her there ! 
 Moscow, St. Petersburg, Cronstadt, Lubec, Berlin, 
 Vienna rapid journeying and short stops ; and now 
 a few weeks among these deep valleys and these tre 
 mendous mountains, and these queer people. Then by 
 Trieste and Genoa to Marseilles, and through the south 
 of France toward the Pyrenees. 
 
 That was the plan marked out, and followed almost 
 to the end; and here, in such safe and common way 
 faring, after the Nile, and the desert, the camels, the 
 Persian caravans, the tideless, stormy Caspian, the 
 Volga River, the Baltic Sea, the Alpine passes, on 
 the quiet Mediterranean shore, within easy hail, they 
 felt, of home, the end had come indeed; their journey 
 on was in the spirit, in the land whence no one comes 
 to tell the way that he has been ; and the things of 
 earth that they had gathered remained for other hands 
 to receive wonderingly, perplexedly, and to do with as 
 might seem possible or good. 
 
 One little pair of unaccustomed, reluctant hands.
 
 COMFORT AND COUNSEL. 473 
 
 "It is too much," Estabel said. "It frightens 
 me. Oh, how could Aunt Vera want it all? And 
 what did she mean to do with it ? " And then her 
 thought would turn back with its reproach upon herself. 
 "If I could only have pleased her better! " she would 
 say. 
 
 "You can please her now," said the Gladmother. 
 
 "If I didn t know how then, how can I know how 
 now ? " Estabel asked, with pathetic simplicity of 
 words. "The things that seemed to please her I 
 mean what she wished for me " and here her voice 
 broke, and she stopped. 
 
 "You forget the difference, my dear. She isn t in 
 the thing-world now; she s in the heart of things. 
 And it s in the heart where you do understand her 
 when you say she wished the things for you that you 
 can go straight to the real best of her, and of it all. 
 It s only the best and the right that lives on. She s 
 got the new sight now, and she sees different from what 
 she did in some ways. We all shall. But the love 
 is always there. We don t realize how much we may 
 do, to finish up for, and to help on, those that have 
 left the place in things to us, and gone up into the 
 meanings." 
 
 "Oh, you dear Gladmother! " 
 
 Estabel was comforted, and took courage. 
 
 With Mr. Henslee she had other talks. He was her 
 strongest friend and adviser, besides being one of the 
 executors of Mr. Clymer s will. 
 
 "You will have to help me find out what to do with 
 it," she said. "The most of it is Remnant." 
 
 " Is what ? " Mr. Henslee lifted his eyebrows, and 
 his eyeglasses jumped off his nose. 
 
 Estabel laughed. "That which is left over, after 
 a person has got enough. Don t you remember or 
 didn t you hear? We came to that definition once,
 
 474 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 and I haven t forgotten it. I think things are planted 
 in people s minds for what they are to grow to by and 
 by. Don t you?" The slight laugh quivered away 
 on her lip. This was not a glad business to her yet, 
 if it could ever be. 
 
 Mr. Henslee did not answer that last little question, 
 but spoke to the former purpose. He began to see that 
 he had a mind to deal with in which certainly things 
 had been planted that began to show. Whether they 
 should all be let flourish to the full, or might need to 
 be thinned out, he was not quite sure. 
 
 " The responsibility is not yours, immediately, " he 
 told her. "Things have got to be put together, into 
 shape, and taken care of, before you will know just 
 where you are. And for another thing, you are not 
 of age. There will have to be a guardian." 
 
 "Oh, dear Mr. Henslee, I am so glad! I never 
 thought of that. You will be my guardian, won t 
 you ? You will help me think and help me do. 
 For I can certainly make plans, and I know you will 
 not hinder them. Please don t let us keep anything 
 waiting that can t wait. It will be almost two years." 
 
 "And in those two years much may happen that we 
 must allow for." 
 
 "Yes. I might die. So we must work. Can t I 
 make a will ? " 
 
 "Not yet legally." 
 
 "Law is very hard," said Estabel thoughtfully. "It 
 makes things wrong that are really right, and " Miss 
 Charlock s funny non-reversals occurred to her, and she 
 ended with another little laugh " things that are 
 really right it makes out to be wrong." 
 
 Mr. Henslee put on his eyeglasses again and regarded 
 her with an incomprehension that was all but anxious. 
 Had this strain of feeling and thinking been too much 
 for her? 
 
 "That is only Aunt Esther," she explained, still
 
 COMFORT AND COUNSEL. 475 
 
 playfully. "She always says a thing right over again, 
 end for end. I think it is a pretty emphatic way." 
 
 "There are other things that may happen besides 
 dying. You may have others to think of. You may 
 marry. Then your husband would have rights, and 
 would be your guardian." 
 
 "I don t think I ever shall," she said gravely. "I 
 want you for my guardian now. And I shall make 
 a will, and as soon as I am of age I shall execute it 
 myself." 
 
 "I am glad that you will have these two years. 
 You will learn that wills are apt to need a good many 
 codicils, " was wisely all that Mr. Henslee replied. 
 
 "There is one thing quite clear beforehand," the girl 
 said. "This cannot all this whole half of Uncle 
 Clymer s money belong to me. It was a great mis 
 take in the will. If it had been even half, after those 
 things were paid that are to be taken out of Dr. North s 
 share, it would still have been too much. He ought to 
 have two thirds, by real right. And somehow you must 
 have it managed so. It must be kept separate until he 
 can be made to take it. I don t know how, or when; 
 I must leave that to you. You must get round it for 
 me." 
 
 "Dr. North is a very hard person to get round," 
 said Mr. Henslee. "And I m afraid there isn t any 
 thing in the Revised Statutes to help us at present."
 
 CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 EXECUTORSHIP. 
 
 MB. HENSLEE had rather a hard time between these 
 heirs-at-law and the conditions of the will. He had to 
 talk to Dr. North very much as he had done to Estabel. 
 
 "You must not he Quixotic about this thing," he 
 said. "The literal debts are a mere nothing. Mr. 
 Clymer paid as he went. And the sort of payment 
 that you seem resolved to undertake is a simple chimera. 
 It was an odd humor of his a retort that could not 
 be retorted on that was all he meant. If it makes 
 you the more conscientious in your use of your super 
 fluity, well enough; it is what we all ought to be. But 
 to try and track out omissions possible shortcomings 
 in the stricter duty of an ended life, of whose par 
 ticulars you can know so little it seems to me both 
 futile and absurd." 
 
 "I shall find out. Not everything, probably, but 
 all I can; and I don t doubt I shall find enough. To 
 begin with, there are all those mechanics who lost their 
 honest pay through Brace and Buckle. And there may 
 be people among those whom my uncle employed 
 whose labor helped to build up and carry out the enter 
 prises that made him rich who have had but their 
 meagre labor pay out of the results, and who ought to 
 share in the success ; and some, very likely honest, 
 struggling men who were his debtors when he died, 
 for borrowed money that the estate can better lose than 
 they can on a stringent summons pay ; to say nothing 
 of high interests that books may show, or loans that
 
 EXECUTORSHIP. 477 
 
 have been redeemed but have left the borrowers poor; 
 to say nothing, further yet, of opportunities that may 
 be guessed and traced, that might have kept the surplus 
 down. I told him, Mr. Henslee, that if a man did the 
 right thing all along, there wouldn t be much danger 
 of superfluous accumulation. It was this, and no joke, 
 that he meant. And I meant what I said." 
 
 Mr. Henslee s face changed as he listened. When 
 Ulick spoke of the mechanics, and of Brace and Buckle, 
 he smiled a little curiously ; as the doctor went on with 
 his suppositions and made manifest his thorough intent, 
 he looked at him with a sincere, honoring, though still 
 qualified, sympathy. For here, truly, was a man of 
 glorious sincerity, yet all the more to be looked out 
 for, and hindered from extreme enthusiasm of sacrifice. 
 
 "Certainly," he said, "one duty of your uncle s was 
 to yourself. You need not ignore that. You must at 
 least reserve a reasonable provision, such as you would 
 have made in his place. You may have those to whom 
 you, in turn, will owe it as a duty. You may marry." 
 
 And at this same point to which he had carried the 
 argument with Estabel, Dr. North replied in effect 
 precisely as she had done. 
 
 "I m not a marrying man," he answered shortly. 
 
 Then Mr. Henslee even ventured further. "I don t 
 know what to do with you two, " he declared, with a 
 recourse to lightness. "Estabel Charlock is bent on 
 very similar dispositions. And she regards you as her 
 chief creditor. She thinks she comes unfairly by what 
 ought in far larger proportion to have been yours. 
 Marriage might settle this whole matter, " he said out- 
 rightly, as he would not have done if he had had less 
 in his thought than the best good of these two odd 
 young persons who, he began to surmise, were shy in 
 all things of the best good to themselves. 
 
 "Marriage can have nothing whatever to do with the 
 question, " Dr. North replied, with the calmest decision.
 
 478 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel demanded to see Dr. North. Mr. Henslee 
 had only told her that he was impracticable; that he 
 would have nothing more, and that he probably would 
 not keep what he had, any longer than to fling it away as 
 fast as he could find any pretext. "I must say, how 
 ever, " he added, " that his search for pretexts is a noble 
 one, although most people would think it as fantastic 
 as the search for the Holy Grail." 
 
 " If they would think that fantastic ! " returned Es 
 tabel. "Hasn t everybody a Holy Grail to find? " 
 
 She was staying again now in Casino Crescent. She 
 had been home, for she felt her place was with the 
 Gladmother as far as possible, while Lilian was away. 
 The young Mrs. Henslee had left loving charge with 
 her, and had said to Dr. North, "You, too, will watch 
 her kindly, won t you? " 
 
 It was curious how the very different sorts of trust 
 were forcing Estabel and Ulick together. And yet 
 both the one because she would not let him feel forced 
 toward her, and the other because neither feeling nor 
 relentless scruple would permit him to be drawn were 
 holding themselves, as to any voluntary movement or 
 sign, apart. 
 
 Purely on business, Estabel sent Dr. North a message 
 that if he could find it convenient she must see him. 
 So he came, as he did everything that must of right be 
 done, to the Crescent. 
 
 "All this appraisal is to be gone through," she told 
 him. "And if you will not allow that any of these 
 things ought to be yours in a fair division, you may 
 like to choose some at the valuation." 
 
 She might have been a mere business agent, instead 
 of the young woman in whose hands the burdensome 
 accumulation had been left, which, from every sense of 
 abstract justice and of personal wish, she would have 
 shared, or given entirely up, to this intractable young 
 man.
 
 EXECUTORSHIP. 479 
 
 "What use should I have for such things?" he re 
 plied. "They would not help me to discharge my 
 trust. " 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 He looked at her with surprise. 
 
 "I have been thinking it out, as well as I can," she 
 said. "I have very much the same questions to settle 
 that you have. And I think that among the things we 
 owe is all the pleasure we can spare out of what we 
 are able to get and understand for ourselves. Beautiful 
 tilings are not all vanities. They are meant to be en 
 joyed. Look at the Gladmother with her prisms. 
 Why can t we scatter these things where they would 
 give so much separate delight to ever so many persons, 
 when all in a mass they lose their beauty, and are only a 
 care to a single one ? " 
 
 Every word she said showed her to him more and 
 more the woman he could honor, the woman who for 
 so long he had believed could not exist. And yet, so 
 long as she was this rich woman, with all his uncle s 
 wealth, that she might think that everybody might 
 think he grudged and coveted underneath his impas 
 sive concurrence in its legitimate and incontrovertible 
 disposition he must hold his peace. 
 
 Doing that, he held himself so erect, as people say, 
 as to bend backward. "I have simply nothing to do 
 with it, " he declared ; " and I do not see how I can 
 advise you." 
 
 Then she was hurt. 
 
 "Dr. North," she said, "I feel that you have every 
 thing to do with it. And it is not fair that you should 
 refuse to look at it with me. You know that in the 
 natural order of things, the greater part of all would 
 have come to you." 
 
 "The natural order of things has happened. I have 
 my share, and it is all, heaven knows, that I want to 
 be responsible for."
 
 480 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I am glad that even so much of it is in your hands. 
 But I am not glad of the restrictions. They make it 
 most unfair. It ought to be made right between our 
 selves. I have sent for you to tell you so once more." 
 
 "It cannot be made otherwise than it is. It is in 
 nobody s power to change. And it makes no personal 
 difference. It leaves me where it found me, which is 
 precisely what it was meant to do. I have been given 
 a commission only, and I mean of course to carry it 
 out. If the money was twice as much it would be just 
 the same. I suppose you remember your own definition 
 of the remnants. Uncle Abel has simply taken me 
 at my word. I agreed with you, and he knew it. He 
 has left me his remnant, and bequeathed what he re 
 garded as his sufficiency elsewhere. And it has come 
 to you." 
 
 "Dr. North, you are absurd. A man s responsi 
 bility can t be detached and imposed in that way. It 
 runs through the whole. I certainly inherit my half 
 of it. And why should you resist my conscience, any 
 more than your own? Mayn t I do as I please with 
 what you say is mine ? " 
 
 "Not in all respects. You -will find restrictions 
 obstacles. You are an heiress, and you cannot help 
 it." 
 
 " I am only an executor a trustee, with a large 
 remnant as you are. Or I ivill be. I have told Mr. 
 Henslee what I shall do. I shall make a will, and 
 execute it myself, as soon as I am out of guardianship. 
 I think that is the proper way to carry out a will. 
 And people can t refuse, you say, what is bequeathed 
 to them. If they try to, it must just lie idle, or be 
 growing to more." 
 
 Dr. North could not help laughing. 
 
 "That will not trouble me much. It is not likely 
 to concern me, whatever you do. I am eleven years 
 older than you."
 
 EXECUTORSHIP. 481 
 
 "This is silly. As if eleven years meant anything, 
 knowing what we know now about life and death! Dr. 
 North, why won t you help me? Why can t we do this 
 right thing together ? " 
 
 Was ever man so bestead ? And yet in all this there 
 was a gleam of light. He did not know how near the 
 day was to breaking. He thought it still his sworn 
 duty to shut his eyes and turn them from the dawn. 
 
 He recurred to his old argument his stern reitera 
 tion. 
 
 "It is what he meant. He supposed, of course, that 
 it would be a long time before it could affect you; 
 never, except through the will of your aunt, who would 
 still have the moulding of you; and subject to all the 
 further possibilities of your own life. What he meant 
 by me was, to try me by my own law. He was a keen 
 man. He did not care so much about the money. But 
 he meant to take me down, in my own eyes ; to make 
 me see that I was no better than the rest of the world. 
 I don t doubt he wished to make me comfortable if 
 I could be so, that way; but he would get the best of 
 the argument, first, when there should be no answering 
 back. He would say, I told you so out of every 
 dollar all the rest of my life. But that he cannot do. 
 I shall find the debts ; I shall pay everything. Some 
 time if things are so I shall deliver up my ac 
 count. And if things are so" he repeated, "I 
 shall simply have done the will of the dead alive." 
 
 "You mean the will that is afterward? what he 
 would be wishing now ? " 
 
 "If afterward is now. We don t know that. But 
 we must act as if it were." 
 
 "I think that is grander, Dr. North, than if you 
 knew, or believed absolutely." 
 
 She said "you," not "we." He noted it. 
 
 " There is nothing grand at all in doing the thing that 
 has to be done, " he answei ed, with his utmost coldness.
 
 482 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "You forget one thing," Estabel said, after a pause 
 in which her tone and manner again adjusted them 
 selves to his. "I represent Aunt Vera." 
 
 " Yes ; in a clear, undivided half of the estate, free 
 of all conditions." 
 
 "Except its duties. We agreed once ahout what 
 a wife s concern would be in such a case. If those 
 duties were not provided for, they are left to me, as 
 they would have been to her. And do you think Aunt 
 Vera would not have known that her first duty would 
 be to make good to you ? " 
 
 "That is a duty which you cannot possibly inherit. 
 Or that, at any rate, you cannot do." 
 
 He was in full armor now, breastplate and helmet ; 
 heart and head in defense of iron mail. 
 
 "You make things very hard for me." 
 
 "No. I will make them easy, in any other way, if 
 I can. But for this I will have nothing from you." 
 
 How could she know that his hardness was all against 
 himself ?
 
 CHAPTER LXII. 
 
 APPRAISALS. 
 
 THERE was no reason for delay in settling the estate. 
 Certainly the two years allowed by law need not be 
 taken. All possible demands were referable to Dr. 
 North s share. Practically, he was in so far executor, 
 and had simply to be put in possession of his trust. 
 Mr. Clymer s investments were in such shape that a 
 clear division of the personal property was easily possi 
 ble. As regarded the business, both Mr. Clymer and 
 his partner had become very wealthy men ; and although 
 neither of the heirs would find it desirable to retain 
 a money interest in the house, Mr. Steeples had not 
 only his own large capital, but would be at no loss to 
 secure a new partnership or company that would bring 
 in all that might be expedient for continuance or exten 
 sion. Clymer and Steeples" could put out a hand 
 where it chose, and find eager response. 
 
 So as the winter wore on, things simplified in just 
 the degree that depended upon putting control, as fast 
 as required, into the hands that had final claim. Books 
 were gone over ; Dr. North made the most scrupulously 
 careful memoranda, as to all transactions in loan and 
 mortgage. If anybody had suffered not wrongfully ; 
 that was not the supposition upon which he acted, for 
 Clymer and Steeples had been an honorable firm, and 
 everything was done in business fairness ; but if any 
 body had been hard pushed by circumstance, and left in 
 a hard place, he meant to know. He followed up busi 
 ness and personal histories ; more than one man who
 
 484 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 had succumbed to unfortunate pressure in some crisis, 
 and had never got his sure footing afterward, was sur 
 prised by the offer of fresh loan on almost nominal 
 terms ; and more than one family, left poor in widow 
 hood and fatherlessness, received a substantial sum 
 "recovered by better turn of an investment " made for 
 them years ago, or from the "closing sale of a pro 
 perty " of which the mortgage had been purchased by 
 Clymer and Steeples, and which had now "realized a 
 large advance in value." 
 
 These general statements must indicate and cover 
 such account as can be given of Ulick North s proceed 
 ings ; our story cannot follow into precise detail. 
 
 Meanwhile, Estabel had more minutely wearisome 
 personal cares to discharge. The consignments from 
 abroad kept arriving; it was necessary to do something 
 with them. By advice of her elders, she opened the 
 house in Mount Street, and established herself there 
 temporarily, at least. Aunt Esther and the Gladmo- 
 ther came up from Stillwick to be with her. The shop 
 was left with the jubilant Miss Eliza Gillespy ; and a 
 young girl one of the Speering family, whom Lilian 
 had kindly instructed in flower-making, and helped to 
 develop a "natural knack," as her mother proudly 
 called it, with ribbons and trimmings was regularly 
 to assist her. Miss Charlock herself, with all the re 
 source and convenience of Topthorpe shops, made bon 
 nets and caps in her pleasant, large upper chamber, and 
 sent them down to Stillwick by Simon Peter Babson. 
 
 Mrs. Trubin had the corresponding room on the floor 
 below, that was yet high enough to look over the in 
 cline of roofs down the steep hill, and take in the 
 broad, shiny expanse of the Shawme at its broadest and 
 sunniest, and the country margin beyond, white and 
 glittering now, for the most part, with ice and snow, 
 but with wooded outlines and fair slopes that promised 
 and suggested all the beautiful summer green.
 
 APPRAISALS. 485 
 
 As things do happen in this world, so often maligned 
 for its contrarieties and so little credited with its happy 
 coincidences, Archibald, of olden elegant service and 
 willing loyalty, had appeared one day in Casino Cres 
 cent, having heard that Miss Estabel had "come in for 
 the house and a lot of money, " and that she was to 
 take up her abode at the Mount Street home again, 
 and announced that as she would obviously and dis 
 tinctly need people to help her that knew how, he would 
 be glad to come for as long as she wished, by the day ; 
 his wife could run the restyouraunt ; he need only look 
 over the accounts. And moreover, his wife had heard 
 from Sara Sullivant that Uncle Zimri was done with 
 her, and " all below, " and she would like to come back 
 to Topthorpe if she could hear of a chance. And so it 
 came to pass that Archibald and Sara were again domes 
 ticated at Number 84, where they "knew every stick 
 and chip, " and had helped pack everything away. 
 
 Sara Sullivant had arrived with not only the big 
 trunk big trunks having become a hallmark of travel 
 ing distinction at that time which she had when she 
 went away ; but also with a long, heavy redwood chest, 
 secured with two great hasps and padlocks, which Uncle 
 Zimri had himself constructed on some South Sea voy 
 age when he had been ship s carpenter, and which held 
 all the wonderful accumulations of his seafaring life, 
 and represented to Sara Sullivant as much family splen 
 dor and artistic value as any of the Clymers costly cof 
 fers from the Orient and the Mediterranean. Archibald 
 made vigorous remonstrance when the wagon brought 
 them to the garden gate on the little back street. 
 
 "How do you expect them things are going to be 
 housed ? " he demanded, letting his front door elegance 
 slip. "Why didn t you bring a barn or two, or a 
 meet n -house, an done with it? " 
 
 "How did you expect me to come, with all my be 
 longings? Like a fly, in at the window, with my
 
 486 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 trunk in my mouth ? " Sara retorted, with overwhelm 
 ing smartness ; and had her way, with a compromise. 
 There was room in the long kitchen hall, that ran 
 through the basement in darkness to a storeroom with 
 a sidewalk window on the side street. And with this 
 initial assertion of her resumed supremacy, Sara Sulli- 
 vant inaugurated herself. 
 
 Upstairs, both Sara and Archibald took virtual oath 
 of office in the most alert and instant and deferential 
 discharge of the first possible familiar duties. 
 
 They unpacked, and unpacked, box after box, as these 
 were passed through the customs, invoices scanned, heavy 
 duties paid, and delivered up. Swiss carvings, Bohemian 
 glass, Florentine inlaid work, Neapolitan corals, Roman 
 bronzes, alabasters from Pisa, rugs and soft silken dra 
 peries from Constantinople and Ispahan, trophies from 
 every conquered meridian and parallel of world travel. 
 
 "The house will be solid with things, from sidewalk 
 to rafters," said Sara Sullivant. "Talk about my 
 chest ! T is n t a pill box ! " 
 
 "Where could they have expected to find place for 
 it all ? " queried gentle Cousin Lucy. 
 
 "I think Uncle Clymer was planning to build at 
 Sycamore Hill, " said Estabel. 
 
 "A crystal palace or a museum! " interjaculated Aunt 
 Esther, with a sniff, which she checked in the middle, out 
 of traditional reverence for the "passed away." 
 
 "You might stock a bazaar, for the benefit of a 
 hospital." 
 
 " Or a lunatic aslyum, " Aunt Esther supplemented 
 under her breath. "It makes me feel luny just to look 
 at em." 
 
 "I might stock a choice shop, and employ a shop 
 keeper on a liberal commission, " said Estabel quite se 
 riously. "I 11 think of that." 
 
 "And then the next puzzle will be you won t know 
 what to do with the money, " Aunt Esther rejoined.
 
 APPRAISALS. 487 
 
 Dr. North, who had suggested the bazaar, laughed, 
 and got up to go. He came to Mount Street now, 
 after his own fashion, with apparent unconcern. He 
 had a way of shielding himself in the safety of num 
 bers. He talked impersonally ; his remarks dropped in 
 like leaves upon a current ; or if he directly addressed 
 anybody, it was seldom Estabel. He had most to say 
 to the Gladmother. When he went away, it was with 
 the curtly pleasant generality of "Good-by, all." 
 
 " I like your idea of scattering the pleasantness, " 
 said Cousin Lucy, a few minutes later, in the china- 
 room, as they inspected the fresh treasures there that 
 had been spread out on shelves and table. 
 
 "It s the only way to enjoy any of it myself," said 
 Estabel. "I don t mean conscientiously, but really 
 and simply. Don t you see how the much of it makes 
 it seem like nothing? I shall give it away as fast as 
 I can see how, among the prisoners and captives, 
 people shut up in sick chambers, or in plain, pinched 
 homes. A little would go so far. One thing like this 
 would make a whole room beautiful." She reached up 
 and touched with her fingers, as she spoke, a great 
 ruby-colored cut-glass bowl. "And there s a cool, 
 lovely, deep green one; that s to be the Gladmother s, 
 to hold her pond lilies next summer." 
 
 " Well, " observed Sara Sullivant, " I ve heard of a 
 bull in a china shop, but I believe you 11 make things fly 
 smarter! What do you spose your Aunt Clyrner would 
 say?" 
 
 Estabel turned a grave, sweet look upon her. "I 
 think I knoiv," she answered. "And that is greatly 
 why I mean to do it." 
 
 Perhaps here, as well as anywhere, may come in the 
 mention of a slight occurrence incident to the reopening 
 of the Clymer residence, and the consequent observation 
 and interest in the vicinity.
 
 488 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Estabel met Corinna Chilstone and her brother one 
 morning, coming up the sidewalk, just as she herself 
 was about entering her own door. They stopped, and 
 Corinna stepped eagerly forward, stretching out her 
 hand. Young Chilstone kept a little back, and stood 
 still, but lifted his hat with an air and smile of that 
 one-of-us sort of recognition which to Estabel Char 
 lock, in the former days, had not used to come. 
 
 "We are going to be neighbors again? " said Corinna, 
 with a question that was also a glad exclamation. 
 "How nice! " 
 
 Estabel gave her hand for a civil touch, and then 
 released it. 
 
 "I do not know. I have no fixed plans yet," she 
 answered ; and then with the sweetest, most composed 
 simplicity, asked, "Were we ever neighbors? " 
 
 "Oh, don t think of those old school days! " Corinna 
 begged, with cordial impulse not to be gainsaid. "I 
 was so silly then. Just beginning; not knowing how 
 to choose, you know, but supposing that I must be so 
 careful in my choosing. Tout cela est change, n est ce 
 pas?" 
 
 "A good deal is changed; but some things always 
 are the same. I don t believe you 11 like me any bet 
 ter now." 
 
 There was a touch of the old brusqueness, more qui 
 etly, gracefully given, still given direct, without the 
 usual veiling of a polite sarcasm. It was not sarcasm; 
 it was only honest statement and predication ; that was 
 what made it most keenly sarcastic. Corinna hardly 
 knew what to do with such directness. 
 
 "We may come and see you, mayn t we, Oswald 
 and I ? " she persisted, passing by magnanimously what 
 ever Estabel s speech might mean, whether of modest 
 doubt or of purposed reprisal. And again Mr. Oswald 
 Chilstone bowed with a smile to Estabel, and gave his 
 sister a glance which said, "Fairly delivered! "
 
 APPRAISALS. 489 
 
 Estabel smiled also a quick, curious flash. She 
 was reminded of Professor Scalchi s queer objurgation, 
 "Master Sheelstone! You zhoost like von ee-1! " 
 
 There was undoubtedly something eel-like in the 
 squirm of the Chilstone nature ; reptile-like in the easy 
 shedding of its skin. 
 
 "Certainly, you may, if we become more settled. My 
 aunt will be with me. My other aunt," she added, a 
 grave shade passing over her face as she saw the surprised 
 puzzle in Corinna s. "The milliner, you know," she 
 explained further, a gleam of amusement again chasing 
 away the shadow. 
 
 Corinna laughed, taking it as a joke of the privileged. 
 Estabel Charlock might have any aunt she pleased, now. 
 
 "You were always so funny! " she exclaimed weakly. 
 "But we shall come. Good-by! " And the two bowed, 
 and nodded, and passed her, sidling, with lingering 
 grace of leave-taking, on their way. 
 
 "Got it both sides of your head, didn t you, Con? " 
 the brother asked, as soon as they were beyond hearing. 
 "She understands hitting out, doesn t she? " 
 
 Through the wire blind of a basement window, Sara 
 Sullivant had had partial observation of the interview. 
 
 She came up into the vestibule to let Estabel in. 
 
 "That was them young Chilstones, wasn t it?" she 
 asked. 
 
 Estabel assented. 
 
 "Pretty polite, wasn t they? " 
 
 "Very. They asked if they might come and call." 
 
 "I warrant. They 11 take you at appraisal. But- 
 ter-an -cat! " said Sara Sullivant.
 
 CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 B. THISTLESTOKE. 
 
 THERE are two sorts of mediation possible in human 
 affairs : the f etch-and-carry the go-hetween kind, 
 often meddlesome and impertinent, sometimes malicious, 
 always hazardous ; and the quiet sitting at the receipt 
 of confidence, which makes the recipient wise and quick, 
 in all the instincts of a true sympathy, and therefore a 
 possible sort of spiritual graphophone a depository of 
 things that repeat themselves by a hidden law of vibra 
 tion, when the instrument is duly adjusted for the trans 
 mission. 
 
 The Gladmother was such a receiver and transmitter 
 quite without deliberate plan, but simply by the 
 working of an inevitable natural principle between 
 Dr. North and Estabel Charlock. She sat among her 
 rainbows, and listened to each ; and unconsciously they 
 talked with each other through her, while imagining 
 themselves very much aloof from intimate intercourse. 
 
 It had not proved comfortably practicable for them 
 to consult very much directly upon matters interesting 
 both, but bearing closely as they did upon points of 
 personal difference between them. Estabel grew reti 
 cent, if not resentful ; and Dr. North, though he knew 
 this was not being true to his own inmost truth, but 
 only to the obligation of circumstance, relapsed into his 
 stiff and guarded restraint. 
 
 But Ulick managed to make himself pretty well aware 
 of Estabel s movements through his friendly visits to 
 Mrs. Trubin ; and when he had been with the Glad-
 
 R. TIIISTLESTOKE. 491 
 
 mother, Estabel was apt to come in not long after, 
 while things were fresh in the old lady s mind. 
 
 Once in a while it happened that the two met in her 
 pleasant room, and then it was almost funny how they 
 made her serve for some mutual bit of communication 
 that neither would have otherwise volunteered. 
 
 "I can t make out much in that West Gardens busi 
 ness, " the doctor was saying one day, as Estabel en 
 tered. He gave her usual greeting, placed a chair for 
 her, and then went on. "Mr. Henslee has never ex 
 plained ; he only says things were settled long ago, in 
 regular way of business ; that there is nothing more to 
 be done about it. Of course, I have.no right to de 
 mand to see Brace and Buckle s books; but they are 
 going on as usual, and what I want is to know how 
 things were settled with all others who may have been 
 interested as Mr. Hawtree was." 
 
 "I think R. Thistlestoke would tell you," said Es 
 tabel. 
 
 She might have explained further, without sending 
 him to R. Thistlestoke, for she had "seen R. Thistle- 
 stoke herself on that very same quest ; but she had 
 grown shy of saying even so much to the doctor as the 
 few words in which she thus referred him, since he had 
 repudiated all joint action with her, and maintained his 
 own careful reserve. 
 
 Dr. North went to R. Thistlestoke. 
 
 R. Thistlestoke knew and told him all about it. He 
 also told him that he had already, at her inquiry, given 
 the same information to Miss Charlock, and long before 
 that to Mr. Henslee. "It s all been looked up and 
 attended to. You re got ahead of. Yes they was 
 pretty much all friends of mine, those small contractors. 
 I was able to give Mr. Henslee all the points he wanted 
 in the time of it; and Brace and Buckle s books had 
 to do the rest. You see, the amount of it was this : 
 After that matter of Hawtree, and his death, and all,
 
 492 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 Mr. Henslee wasn t the sort of man to feel easy till 
 he d sounded things clear through. So he got the 
 other shareholders together, as I understand, and laid 
 it before em in open house. We ve got this property 
 and improved it, he says, or words to that effect, I 
 was n t there, and it s going to be a high paying in 
 vestment. Now we don t want to start the works with 
 a flaw in the machinery, even if it costs something to 
 put things right, instead of letting em go right wrong. 
 I mayn t have got the exact words, but that was the 
 sense of em; and if it wasn t horse sense, it was some 
 thing better. It ain t too late, he told em, to 
 stop Brace and Buckle just where they are ; and it may 
 prove to be in a hole. They re calling meetings, and 
 talking over creditors to a compromise and expecting 
 to get off with fifty or sixty cents on the dollar, cash ; 
 but that don t mean much to mechanics who need all 
 their pay, and ought to have had it straight along. I 
 move that we buy up liabilities, and then go in with 
 our claims, and put the whole thing into chancery if 
 the fellows won t come up to the scratch. You see 
 I m putting it into my own words, " R. Thistlestoke 
 parenthesized again; "can t help that. Well, some 
 stood out, of course, and one of em had three votes; 
 won t say which twas; anyway, he did stand out to 
 the end on business principles, he said ; and was 
 mad enough when the others give in. Mr. Henslee 
 told em it wasn t any risk not half so much as they 
 took on average paper every day. Brace and Buckle 
 had got plenty, it was only to scare em into coming 
 out of their hidings and playing up on the square. So 
 finally he had his way; it went by a two thirds vote, 
 the notes were bought up and put into the accounts, 
 and I tell you the face of things altered. Rather n go 
 into chancery and be all chewed up, they d hustle 
 round and see what could be done. And the end was, 
 they paid up some, and renewed some, on good security,
 
 R. THISTLESTOKE. 493 
 
 and kep out of bankrup cy ; and now I believe they ve 
 got a thumping new contract of stores on Fort Street 
 and are going ahead whooping. Anyway, it s off your 
 hands, if twas ever on. And I told Miss Estabel 
 Charlock the same." 
 
 Dr. North was getting light. He had not all the 
 world to set straight. Some things some people 
 were pretty near straight already. There was a leaven 
 at work ; working himself, from that same leaven, he 
 came in contact with it where it had taken its hold else 
 where in the mass. This responsibility was going to 
 do something, reactively, for himself also. He began 
 to feel less aggressive ; less as if he had the whole planet 
 to pull after him.
 
 CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 SPECTACLES. 
 
 HE told the Gladmother the result of his interview 
 with Mr. Thistlestoke. "That s an honest man," he 
 said. "And Mr. Harrison Henslee, with all his money, 
 is another." This was great admission from Ulick 
 North; but if Ulick North had a conviction, though it 
 might contradict former prejudice, he was bound to 
 announce it. 
 
 "Why do you suppose she Miss Estabel " he 
 formalized her name with difficulty "did not tell me 
 all this herself, instead of sending me to R. Thistle- 
 stoke ? " 
 
 "There might be several reasons. One is, I think 
 likely, that she s as proud, and as afraid, as you are." 
 
 Dr. North looked up quickly. "Of what? " he asked. 
 
 " Of pretty much the same, maybe, " returned the 
 sententious old lady. "I don t "pretend to know. But 
 I can see this much that you re each pulling at an 
 opposite end of a hard knot, and only drawing it 
 tighter. I don t think you re either of you very bright, 
 Dr. Ulick. I ve looked for my spectacles before now, 
 when they were on top of my head. And I ve heard 
 of a man who couldn t find his, because he hadn t got 
 em to hunt with." 
 
 "Yours appear to be on your nose, now, at any rate, 
 Gladmother," said Dr. Ulick, laughing. "You may as 
 well tell me what you see." 
 
 "I see yours right at your elbow. It s for you to 
 pick em up and put em on."
 
 SPECTACLES. 495 
 
 "I think you re talking in riddles, Mrs. Trubin." 
 
 "Now you re going into your shell again. It isn t 
 any riddle that Estabel Charlock won t answer ques 
 tions that you don t ask. You asked me right over 
 her head. She was pretty good to tell you anything. 
 You ve shut her up, Ulick North. She would have 
 been glad of your help and advice about this thing you 
 have both got to do, and you have snubbed her. You 
 wouldn t bother yourself with her affairs, and she won t 
 put herself forward to meddle with yours, unless you 
 ask her. That s natural enough. I ve always thought 
 you were pretty clever at seeing into things, but you 
 don t seem to have got your eyes open about this. Why 
 can t you see that to make friends of this unrighteous 
 mammon difficulty would be the quickest means of get 
 ting it out of your way altogether? Wouldn t two 
 pairs of hands work faster . at it than one can ? And 
 mayn t you possibly, for fear of a small, shabby thing, 
 be refusing yourself and somebody else a great, 
 divine thing ? " 
 
 She had gone on, as impelled by something that 
 would be spoken and spoken earnestly ; but she broke 
 off with a gentle self-check. "You d better think it 
 out, Dr. Ulick. I guess I ve said all I ve got to say 
 or it s best to say on that point." 
 
 "Perhaps, then, you could enlighten me on some 
 other, " suggested Ulick blandly. He had taken up his 
 hat, but, instead of rising to go, sat twirling it between 
 his knees. "I have plenty of puzzles. I ve almost 
 come to the end of my direct clues." 
 
 "Clues to what? " 
 
 "These liabilities of Uncle Clymer s, that I was to set 
 right. There seems just now to be no thoroughfare." 
 
 "Did you expect to go back into his whole life, and 
 live it over again for him? That isn t given to us 
 to do, even for ourselves. The only thing is to go on. 
 You re not very bright about that, either, Dr. Ulick."
 
 496 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "I dare say not. I don t feel so. I m only sure 
 of the one thing, that all this that has been put into 
 my hands is owed somewhere." 
 
 "Isn t everything that s in any of our hands? 
 Why should you separate this from all the rest you re 
 trusted with ? " 
 
 "How do you mean? " 
 
 " I mean your own life your power, your skill, 
 your special chances to help. If you can t find clear 
 ways enough of making up for what might have been 
 done by somebody else, to get rid of every cent of this 
 money right off, why not conclude that you re put at 
 liberty by some of it to turn round and give service 
 where you were only earning your bread before? 
 You re a very rich man that way yourself, Ulick North, 
 and you have a very grand errand." 
 
 Here was a fresh aspect, again. Would that fashion 
 of looking at and interpreting it be a sophistry ? He 
 was terribly self-suspicious and afraid of sophistries, 
 this young radical. 
 
 "Estabel has more common sense. And common 
 sense and angelic sense are made to work together 
 not opposite." 
 
 " What does Estabel say ? " 
 
 Do you suppose Dr. North put that question ? Not 
 at all, in words. But it was alert in every fibre of 
 him. He was all ears, and his ears were "pricked up." 
 
 The Gladmother answered : 
 
 "She says she has the rest of Aunt Vera s life to 
 live for her. She knows it can t be all done at once, 
 and nothing can be wholly done over. I shall do it 
 as fast as I see how, she says. Aunt Vera has been 
 interrupted, and I m taking it up to go on. I ve 
 told her, and Mr. Henslee has told her, you ve found 
 out now that he has both kinds of sense, that what 
 ever else she does, she must keep a safe and sufficient 
 competence for herself, and not be in a blind hurry
 
 SPECTACLES. 497 
 
 with the rest. Why, of course, she said to that ; 
 ; that is all down in the will I m making. I ve left 
 enough to myself. That s what Aunt Vera meant, I 
 know. And the rest is the Trust Fund. It s the 
 Sacred Remnant. If I don t find ways to use it up 
 while I live, it goes at last with the competence. And 
 I mean that to go where I think it will work out the 
 errand. She s got the wisdom of the children, Dr. 
 North. She 11 never be a too-rich woman of a too- 
 worldly world. And you need n t lay that up any 
 longer against her." 
 
 What, really, had he to lay up against her? 
 
 What, in sober reason, to build up against himself? 
 When, after all, the very thing she had wanted of him 
 and had asked of him in simple friendship, had been 
 to help her pull down and put away this barrier that 
 had been set between them ? When even the restitu 
 tion to himself which she had pleaded to make might 
 have been only as the passing from one hand to the 
 other for the doing of a selfsame will, that which their 
 two wills might unite to put to an identical purpose ? 
 
 What, in the final real argument, had this inheritance 
 practically to do with their possible personal relations? 
 
 The Gladmother s Ithuriel touch, reversing the old 
 Satanic transformation, had shown him, under the dis 
 appearing guise of an opposing evil phantom, the wing- 
 flash of an angel of light. 
 
 And she had told him, this wise Gladmother, that 
 if he wanted to know anything of Estabel, he must ask 
 her himself, straight out.
 
 CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SUKBENDEB. 
 
 DB. NOBTH was used to rapid reasoning. He was 
 also used to prompt action upon his conclusions. He 
 determined to ask a question perhaps more than one 
 of Estabel Charlock. 
 
 He was a man who made, not waited for, his oppor 
 tunity. He was no more easily turned aside from a 
 formed intent than compelled into anything which he 
 did not intend, or believe to he the thing consonant 
 with his own obligations as he might at any particular 
 time understand them. 
 
 The very next day after his talk with the Gladmother 
 in which she had turned that fine light upon the mutual 
 attitude of Estabel and himself, and upon their common 
 problems, he walked over to Mount Street at an early 
 after-dinner hour, which in those days meant early 
 afternoon, before ordinary visitors might be expected, 
 and inquired of Archibald at the door for Miss Estabel 
 Charlock. 
 
 "Yes, sir. I think Miss Estabel is in the library, 
 sir," and stood aside, as leaving the way for him to 
 proceed thither. 
 
 "Be kind enough to ask if she will see me," said 
 Dr. North. 
 
 Archibald, with an impassive propriety that re 
 strained some curious surprise at the unusual formality, 
 obeyed ; and returning, announced with the same per- 
 functoriness what Estabel s gently audible assent had 
 made it unnecessary to repeat, "Certainly, sir; this
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 499 
 
 way, sir. Shall I take your overcoat, sir ? " And in 
 another moment he was within the room, and Archibald 
 had closed the door behind him. 
 
 Going down to the kitchen, the astute official laid 
 injunction upon Sara. 
 
 "I m going down- town of an errand, Miss Sulli- 
 vant, " he said. "Dr. North s upstairs; he s called 
 particular on Miss Estabel. If the bell rings before 
 he goes, you may as well not let anybody else in. 
 They ve got some business, most likely. I don t 
 know, and I haven t any orders, but I 11 take the re 
 sponsibility. The doctor s look meant business, if I ve 
 any judgment ; and I ve taken some notice for a con 
 siderable spell back. I know some signs by experience. 
 A man holds back and shies off and then he 
 marches up. Dr. North s marching up; it ain t a 
 suitable time to interrupt. There may be too much 
 depending. If you was to go and ask Miss Estabel 
 some little faddling question now Lord ! you might 
 as well put a loose pin into that music box they set 
 running the other night. There d be an end of the 
 tune, an maybe it d never play up again. So don t 
 go near the lib ry, nor let anybody else, unless the 
 house catches fire and there s barely time to warn em 
 to get out." 
 
 "Got through? P r aps you think I never had any 
 experience myself? Experiences don t tell, when you ve 
 known how to drop your own pins. I never was one to 
 say yes, just to show folks I d had the chance to say 
 no." Sara Sullivant was ironing, and she set down 
 her flatiron with a thud that might have vibrated to the 
 third story. 
 
 "I didn t say anything about yes and no. Women 
 always grip a thing before it s there; and when it is 
 there, they let go. There s explanations to make some 
 times. And Dr. North s been laying up a pretty good 
 stock of em. Where s Miss Charlock? "
 
 500 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "Up in her room, finishing off a bonnet." 
 "Don t let her go down to the lib ry, then, to consult 
 whether a feather shall stick up or stick down." And 
 having provided against all conceivable contingencies, 
 Archibald took himself off. 
 
 Sara Sullivant went straight to Miss Charlock s room 
 with an armful of fresh linen, and certain household 
 questions for more or less extended consideration. 
 With all this munition she mounted guard. She thought 
 she could keep that last feather from being placed too 
 critically in point of time. If nothing else would do, 
 she would stand sentry with leveled musket. 
 
 Estabel was sitting at the library table. She had 
 been copying some inventories, and the loose memoran 
 dum slips lay about her. She rose when the doctor 
 came in. 
 
 "May I talk with you a little while? Or are you 
 very busy ? " 
 
 "It is always easy to be busy; and it is almost al 
 ways easy to make time, " she answered, with a grace 
 of courtesy that just stopped short of impulsive readi 
 ness. 
 
 "Perhaps there are a number of things that I might 
 say or ought to say, " the doctor began, as he drew 
 up the chair she offered him, and she resumed her seat 
 beside the table, the corner of which was as a kind of 
 redoubt between them. "I think I owe you, in some 
 matters, an account of myself." 
 
 Estabel said never a word. "I think you do " might 
 have been inferred from the quiet pause in which she 
 listened ; but she neither contradicted nor affirmed by 
 even any slightest gesture. 
 
 "Will you let that wait and answer me something 
 first?" 
 
 "If I can." 
 
 "Why did you not tell me, yourself, all that story
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 501 
 
 of Brace and Buckle, and Mr. Henslee s dealing with 
 them, instead of sending me to R. Thistlestoke ? " 
 
 "I did not think you wanted it from me. You did not 
 ask me. And I knew R. Thistlestoke could do it best." 
 
 "That brings me to my point. Have I offended 
 you ? " 
 
 "Not that exactly. You have simply shown me that 
 we cannot work together ; that our affairs had better 
 not be mixed. And you have said you would have no 
 thing from me." 
 
 Estabel spoke without a shade of rancor, and with 
 the half play of a smile. 
 
 "You know what that meant," Dr. North answered 
 her quickly; but he understood how her words went to 
 the root of the matter. 
 
 After a minute s silence, he spoke from the very root 
 of the matter himself. 
 
 "I will ask you everything, now. I will take what 
 ever you will choose to give me." 
 
 That was plain enough, if things had only been a 
 little plainer before. But on the face of it, it seemed 
 to require of Estabel no recognition beyond that of a 
 withdrawal from the cold position of determined uncon 
 cern, of unqualified refusal. And it was late, now, for 
 this to come. 
 
 "What has changed your mind? " she asked him. 
 
 "My mind is not changed. It is only cleared up 
 convinced." 
 
 "Of what, Dr. North?" 
 
 "Of your being all that you have irresistibly proved 
 yourself to be ; all that I did not think I should ever 
 find. Of your being more simply wise, more heavenly 
 true, than I am. That out of your truth, you see 
 truth. I am ready to believe what you believe ; as if 
 in some things I were blind, but you could be eyes for 
 me. I am ready to do what you find good to do. I 
 am in your hands, Estabel."
 
 502 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 This was unconditional surrender, but not in such form 
 that she could answer to all that it implied that she 
 could quite dare let herself think that it implied. 
 
 She caught her breath; but she looked at him with 
 large, frank eyes, that as he had declared of her 
 pure vision would search and find the truth. 
 
 " You think all that of me ? You mean all that, Dr. 
 North?" 
 
 "That, and more. May I say the rest? " 
 She hurried a little with her reply. The great im 
 pending revelation was too strange; it startled her. 
 She would keep it back a space. She would keep to 
 that first moot point, the resolving of which between 
 them would of itself make her happy. "I am glad 
 you will be friends with me," she began. "I am very 
 glad that you can believe in me. I was afraid you 
 never would. I knew that you disliked me once for 
 a good while " 
 
 "You are mistaken, Estabel. I never did dislike 
 you." 
 
 "Then I don t understand " and there she stopped. 
 She could not bring up all the past, and all her feeling 
 in it, at once confessing herself and forcing him to 
 fuller explanation. 
 
 But Dr. North had begun to explain. It was what 
 he had come to her to-day to do, and he never left 
 things half done. 
 
 "No. I told you that I owed you an account of 
 myself. But before I could suppose that it would sig 
 nify to you, I had to ask what I have asked. I 
 don t always understand myself. I am made so or 
 I have been twisted so that I can t take anything 
 without test. I am jealous of my own impressions. 
 I watch and question them. It is n t easy for me to 
 believe all that I most desire to believe." 
 And here, in his turn, he hesitated. 
 To that Estabel could speak. "That is the whole
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 503 
 
 trouble, Dr. North. It is just what has been in the 
 way of my - understanding. I was always running 
 against your doubts of me, and of things that I 
 couldn t bear to think you doubted. You can t be 
 lieve. You want to see everything; to put your finger 
 upon a thing before you will acknowledge" it is there. 
 And yet " she smiled a lovely, timid smile, deprecat 
 ing what might seem like such arraignment "you 
 know we cannot really touch, after all. There s al 
 ways a space between that we have to believe over. 
 We have to trust each other, and all the things that 
 we are put in any sort of relation with. We are made 
 up of impressions." 
 
 "I believe you. I have said that you may testify 
 to me, if you will. Will you take me in hand, Es- 
 tabel ? " 
 
 Still she answered him on the score of friendship. 
 "I think I am taking you in hand," she said. "I 
 have brought up old things against you, that in some 
 part I think differently about now. I had begun to 
 see how true you had to be with yourself before you 
 could say that anything was absolutely true to you; and 
 how sure you would be to find out how the truth in 
 you was the truth everywhere. I did want you to find 
 some of it in me ; that you would just not think meanly 
 of me just be friends. I should be so proud so 
 glad. And I thought we were almost friends, when 
 this poor money came and stopped it." 
 
 "No." The syllable broke with emphasis from 
 Ulick s lips. "Money stopped nothing. It only forced 
 back upon itself what could not be stopped what it 
 was too late to stop. It would not have hindered 
 friendship. It did forbid it only stopped me from 
 not friendship, Estabel ; it would not have touched 
 that ; it was from " 
 
 She interposed before the word. "You will let me 
 make it right, then, now ? You will divide with me ? "
 
 504 SQUARE PEGS. 
 
 "No, " he said again impetuously. "I will not di 
 vide. I will have all or nothing. Will you not let me 
 say that I want you ? I will help you give away your 
 last dollar, if you will give me yourself." 
 
 Estabel looked in his face a moment. Her own 
 flushed. The tears welled up into her eyes. Then, 
 slowly, she stretched out hoth her hands to him. He 
 took them in a strong grasp. He stood up, came close, 
 and leaned over her. "I love you with my very soul," 
 he whispered. 
 
 And Estabel answered low, "I believe you, Dr. 
 North." 
 
 He leaned closer. He held the little hands to his 
 strong heart. He searched into her eyes with his own, 
 that glowed fervently. 
 
 " How much does that mean ? You only believe ? I 
 shall want more. And you must not say Dr. North." 
 
 "Believing is all. I love you, Ulick." 
 
 After a happy quietness they began to talk of many 
 things. On everything a new light shone ; all was 
 bright as in the rising of a new day. Many things 
 yet always the same, because through and in them all had 
 run, and at this supreme moment had been made mani 
 fest, the history of that love which now and for always 
 was declared and understood, without a cloud or doubt 
 between them ; which now and for always, in all these 
 things, in all that these should come to, in all else that 
 should meet them and grow in them for all their life, 
 which was to be one, should shine and rule and bless, 
 keeping the holy, beautiful unity. Nothing would be 
 small, nothing could be adverse, nothing could harass 
 and perplex, because nothing would separate. All 
 would have to do with, and to further, and to manifest 
 joyfully, that central, everlasting truth of life, that 
 which when his children know, makes them know God. 
 
 It was very sweet now to talk of what they might
 
 UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER. 505 
 
 do together with this money that had so nearly driven 
 them apart. 
 
 "You will give me my freedom in it! " Estabel said 
 suddenly, a new perception striking her of what her 
 changed position would be. "I shall not have to wait 
 the whole two years for anything! " 
 
 And then, stopping as suddenly as she had exclaimed, 
 she blushed beautifully; and Ulick did not answer her 
 in words, but by use of his silent prerogative, which 
 made her blush the more. 
 
 Before he went away, standing with his arm around 
 her, and his eyes looking down into her face without any 
 more reserve of that which had been kept back so long, 
 Ulick said to her softly, " I do not think I have disguised 
 myself, Estabel, except in this that I have given up dis 
 guising. You know what I am, and what I am not. And 
 you take me, bravely and sweetly, just as I am? You 
 dare it, and you wish it ? " 
 
 Estabel gave him a quick smile, that had in it at 
 once a flash of fun, and withal a wonderful tenderness. 
 
 "You were so determined not to disguise yourself 
 that you did not behave yourself," she said. "I told 
 the Gladmother that long ago. You behaved somebody 
 else that was not you at all. But I do not think," and 
 a lovely seriousness possessed both face and voice, "that 
 we take each other so much for what we are, as for 
 what we are going to be and should never be, " she 
 ended almost in a whisper, leaning her head down to 
 ward his shoulder, "without each other."
 
 CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 AS A SAPPHIRE STONE. 
 
 TWILIGHT was falling that winter afternoon, though 
 the days were lengthening, before anybody came near the 
 library. 
 
 Dr. North had just left the house, and Estabel had 
 escaped upstairs, when Archibald ventured cautiously in 
 to light the gas. 
 
 The next day the whole house knew. And Casino 
 Crescent knew. And there was great gladness. And 
 in the Gladmother s room the rainbows shone and 
 streamed in noonday sunshine when Ulick and Estabel 
 came to her for her tender word of blessing. 
 
 And a letter went that very day that would find 
 Lilian and Harry in some fair West Indian island, on 
 their leisurely journey northward, coming home over 
 the long sea leagues with the springtime. 
 
 It was a few days later that Ulick brought to Estabel 
 the betrothal ring. There had needed a little time, 
 he said, to make it what he wanted. 
 
 It was an Aster ia. A sapphire, cut en cabochon. 
 
 Estabel looked into its blue clearness. The six rays 
 shot from its centre their sparkle of light. 
 
 "Oh, the beautiful star! " she exclaimed. 
 
 "Yes. It is your name-star Hester-bel." 
 
 He bent his head near hers, over the gem of truth, 
 and lifted the finger upon which he had placed it to 
 his lips. 
 
 "Do you know," he asked her, "what you are going 
 to be ? Estabel North, my sure, beautiful Polar Star ! "
 
 AS A SAPPHIRE STONE. 507 
 
 Estabel laughed a low, happy, tremulous laugh. 
 "A free translation or an astronomic transposal " 
 she replied. "But" looking up at him with that 
 glance he had only known from her these last, few, per 
 fect days "the globe is rectified for us."
 
 ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED 
 BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND CO. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A.