* 

 

 


 
 AN OLD MAN'S ROMANCE
 
 AN 
 
 OLD MAN'S ROMANCE 
 
 A TALE 
 Written by CHRISTOPHER CRAIGIE 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 Published by Copeland and Day 
 MDCCCXCV
 
 ENTERED ACCORDING TO THE ACT OF 
 CONGRESS IN THE YEAR 1895 BY 
 COPELAND AND DAY, IN THE OFFICE 
 OF THE LIBRARIAN OF CONGRESS 
 AT WASHINGTON.
 
 StacfC 
 Anne* 
 
 TO 
 
 HER WHOM 
 
 I HAVE CALLED 
 
 RUTH 

 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 HIGHBANK is unknown outside of New 
 England, and to most New Englanders 
 it is but a name. To a few it is a synonym for 
 what is best in New England rural life, the 
 strength without the hardness of Puritanism, the 
 earnestness without the impatience of the West- 
 ern spirit, the spirituality without the coldness 
 of Old World culture. The town boasts that 
 most of the inhabitants were born there ; and 
 the boast might have been made at any time in 
 the last hundred years. It boasts that it has yet 
 to see its first factory, its first electric street-car, 
 and its first Sunday paper. I do not need to 
 describe its streets ; for every large New Eng- 
 land village which makes these boasts has its 
 old but neat white houses, its newer but not 
 staring brown houses, its capacious lawns, its 
 shaded sidewalks, and its small but wholly 
 trustworthy shops.
 
 Many even of those who lay no claim to 
 residence there, either past or present, cherish 
 the town's honor almost as carefully as those 
 whose names appear, with antique spelling, on 
 the first tax-roll. Some of us steal away to 
 Highbank two or three times a year to breathe 
 its atmosphere. Nature never built a town, 
 they say ; she does n't drive thorns into her 
 own flesh. Yet one can almost fancy that she 
 looked on complacently when Highbank was 
 built. Run out there from the city some day, 
 it does n't matter what the weather is, 
 and you will feel a new vigor in your breast. 
 You will not be assailed at every turn, or at 
 any turn, by the evidence of machinery, 
 mammoth, box-like buildings, smoking chim- 
 neys, wheezing engines, buzzing wheels, rat- 
 tling looms, dangling wires. Best of all, the 
 men you will meet are not machines. They 
 are not turned out of bed by alarm-clocks ; fed 
 with steam-cooked food ; whisked to business 
 in crowded, noisy electric or elevated cars ; 
 wound up for the day's work by the sight of 
 big machines and piles of raw material, or by 
 
 2
 
 the morning's mail ; regulated by the " Express 
 and Shipping Guide," or the post-office sched- 
 ule of mail departures ; hurried through dinner 
 by the amusement column of the evening 
 paper; and finally sent to bed by the fear of 
 the morning's inexorable alarm-clock. 
 
 In Highbank, the sun shines into our win- 
 dows and kisses our eyes, the robin's note kisses 
 our ears, and we wake. We look out of the 
 window, and over our neighbor's lawn we see 
 the valley of the river; and beyond we see 
 old Saddleback, ready to be mounted by any 
 restless spirit. We step out upon the grass, 
 and let the dew take off the hideous, staring 
 gloss which the modern shoe-blacking has given 
 our shoes. Betty soon serves breakfast in 
 the big, low-studded dining-room. The sun 
 streams in through the row of eastern win- 
 dows, touches the glass on the table, and fills the 
 room with rainbows. By and by we stroll out 
 to work. We need no stimulus. Whether or 
 not one is lazy, the eager blood, which air and 
 light have quickened, cries for work to do. To 
 be sure, we do not fancy dictating the price of 
 3
 
 cotton cloth or patent-leather shoes to our 
 type-writer, nor do we fancy taking places at 
 rattling, greasy machines; but we feel like 
 wielding an axe for a half-day, and guiding a 
 plough or working at a forge for another half-day. 
 We want to work in sight of the wide sky and 
 open fields ; and we must have work that leaves 
 our fancy sometimes free. We scorn to bind 
 our thought continuously to money-getting. 
 The realm of thought is our great birthright. 
 Shall one make a draught-horse of one's brains 
 for a mess of pottage ? When the day is done, 
 it is our muscles, not our brains, that are tired. 
 A quiet dinner, free from bustling waiters, from 
 the rumble of carriages along the pavement, and 
 from the thought of timed engagements, begins 
 the evening. We take our books, or chat with 
 each other or a visitor, while the girls at the 
 piano open vistas of dreamland or memory- 
 land to our inner eyes. 
 
 It was through my love for Highbank that 
 
 I was put in the way of learning one of its 
 
 romances. A serious fall in the woods on 
 
 Saddleback forced me to spend a few weeks in 
 
 4
 
 the Highbank hospital, healing a broken leg. 
 My nearest neighbor was an old gentleman of 
 seventy, or thereabouts, who had received in- 
 ternal injuries in a railway accident. As he 
 did not leave his room, it was not until I was 
 allowed to wheel myself about in an invalid's 
 chair that I came to know him. Then out of 
 our common love for the town grew a consid- 
 erable intimacy. 
 
 He was a thoroughly lovable old man. He 
 had preserved his powers in an uncommon de- 
 gree. The only sign of age was a certain 
 timidity ; yet I doubt whether, in thought, at 
 least, the seeming timidity was more than a 
 natural conservatism. At any rate, he had even 
 less of it than is common among professional 
 and business men of his age. 
 
 He spent much of his time in writing. One 
 day, on learning that he had been for many 
 years engaged in work of a literary nature, I 
 ventured to ask him whether he had an unfin- 
 ished book on hand. 
 
 " No," he said, " I am writing for wholly 
 personal reasons. I am trying to picture one 
 5
 
 side of my life as it has been during the last 
 few years. I am trying to show how an- 
 other life has touched my old age, and made 
 it joyful." 
 
 His answer keenly aroused my curiosity. 
 Two young people were in almost constant 
 attendance upon him, and I was eager to know 
 whether either of them was the person whose 
 influence had been so happy. One was a young 
 man, about twenty-two years old, with athletic 
 figure, ruddy cheeks, and laughing blue eyes. 
 It was hard to look into his face without smil- 
 ing in sympathy with his thorough boyishness. 
 He was one of those who take life to be just 
 what it seems on its face to be. The other 
 visitor was a young woman, of perhaps twenty, 
 tall and slight. Her features were not exactly 
 regular, surely not classical. I doubt whether 
 any one who had studied her face would call 
 her handsome, or even pretty. One would not 
 ask whether she were either ; one did not care, 
 she was so much better than either. Beau- 
 tiful was the word for it. The charm came 
 from within. 
 
 6
 
 *' In view of the trouble your injured side 
 gives you, I must say that I admire your dili- 
 gence," I answered. 
 
 " I don't mind that. My task is worth 
 while. A young girl, whom you know, has 
 been a great joy to me. Her power for either 
 good or evil in the world is almost infinite. I 
 have known her well, and I want her to see 
 herself as I see her. So I am attempting to tell 
 the story of her part in my life. I mean to 
 show her the story some day." 
 
 Soon after, his eyes failed him ; and I became 
 his amanuensis. He had already carried the 
 outline of the story to the point where it became 
 a journal, but in many parts it was still fragmen- 
 tary. We went back to pick up the dropped 
 threads, and meanwhile the journal was neg- 
 lected. I witnessed, however, the last scenes 
 of the story, and thus can fill out the unfinished 
 manuscript. 
 
 The time has come when it may be made 
 public without annoyance to any one. Only a 
 change of names is necessary.
 
 I. 
 
 AS I lie and listen to approaching and retir- 
 ing footsteps in the corridor, I cannot help 
 wondering at the strange turn of fate which has 
 brought me here. The dearest place on earth 
 is the place where one has felt the deepest pas- 
 sion, whether of joy or of sorrow. How strange 
 that, though I have wandered for forty years, I 
 was in Highbank when fate struck me down, 
 and left me with nothing to do but to dream ! 
 Here I lived my short season of buoyant joy ; 
 here I suffered ; and here began, long years after, 
 a new life, which was neither joy nor sorrow, 
 but strangely compounded of both. Indeed, in 
 this new life I have lived over the old life, 
 but only as autumn echoes spring. 
 
 Strangely, from my window I can see the 
 street corner where, nine years ago, the new 
 life began. 
 
 The day was clear and stingingly cold. The 
 hard-packed snow upon the sidewalk rang at 
 8
 
 every blow. The afternoon schools had just 
 closed, and the children were flocking home. I 
 often say that if one will show me the children 
 of a town, I can tell at once the character of the 
 people. Wherever I go, I watch for them. 
 Those of Highbank have always had great in- 
 terest for me. I have often wondered whether 
 they are unusually interesting in themselves, or 
 whether the fact that I was once one of them, 
 and love the town, makes me love them. As I 
 stood waiting on the sidewalk, I watched the 
 group of girls approaching me. I had just 
 returned to Highbank after an absence of ten 
 years, and I was eager to see the new genera- 
 tion. In the group were several attractive faces. 
 One, in particular, held my attention. The 
 child was about twelve years old, but tall for 
 her age ; she was slight, and as straight as an 
 Indian, but so well poised and so graceful in 
 every step and turn that one would instinctively 
 liken her to a bird. Her features were not regu- 
 lar, according to recognized standards ; but by 
 so much the more was the information which 
 they gave about her character positive. Every 
 9
 
 line meant something. Her mouth was large, 
 and the lips, though full, were firm and free 
 from any suggestion of too ruddy coloring ; her 
 eyes were a deep blue. As she passed me, they 
 were kindled by an eager light of sympathy 
 with a companion's evident happiness. 
 
 Several of the girls were talking at once, as 
 girls will, and none of them particularly noticed 
 a small colored boy trudging along with a big 
 basket on a sled. As they passed, the boy 
 pulled the sled a little to one side in order to 
 give more room, and in doing so slipped and 
 fell. In striking the sidewalk, he hurt his hand. 
 He lay there, crying softly, to nurse it. The 
 girl who had interested me was in the front of 
 the group, and did not see the fall. A half- 
 smothered exclamation of pity from one of the 
 others must have caught her ear after they had 
 passed, for she turned suddenly about, looked 
 back, and then came running, with face radiant 
 with sympathy. I had in the mean time ap- 
 proached near enough to see the tenderness of 
 her beautiful eyes as she took the boy's bare little 
 hand in her own mittened one. It was hard to
 
 believe that he was not shivering. His clothes 
 not only were thin and ragged, but they hung 
 upon him so loosely that it was doubtful whether 
 he had comfortable underwear beneath. In a 
 moment he was nestled upon the top of the 
 basket, with his hands buried in the girl's muff. 
 In another moment she had taken the sled-rope, 
 and he was spinning over the snow. His white 
 teeth, shining between his laughing lips, belied 
 the freezing tears upon his sleeve. The bruised 
 and tingling fingers were forgotten. 
 
 I followed the gay party. Much to my 
 surprise and pleasure, when the boy had been 
 sent on his way happy, the girl entered the 
 house of an old friend, Arthur Thomas, upon 
 whom I was intending to call in the evening.
 
 n. 
 
 WHEN I was ushered into my friend's 
 library, I found the child whom I had 
 seen in the afternoon, reading before the open 
 fire. She rose as I entered, and asked me 
 whether I wished to see her uncle. 
 
 " Yes," I answered ; " but I am very glad 
 to see you, too, though I fancy you don't know 
 that you ever saw me before." 
 
 "No, sir," she replied; "I don't think I 
 ever have. Have I ? " 
 
 "I am not sure. At any rate, I have seen 
 you before, although I am a stranger in town, 
 at least, I call myself a stranger here nowadays." 
 
 "I can't imagine where you have seen me, 
 sir." 
 
 " Not long ago," I replied, " I saw one of a 
 group of school-girls leave her companions, and 
 after lending her muff to a ragged, shivering 
 negro boy, give him a ride. Did you ever 
 know of a case like that?" 
 i*
 
 " But I should n't think you would remem- 
 ber me." 
 
 "I try always to remember people who do 
 that sort of thing." 
 
 Arthur came in, and the child started to go. 
 He stopped her; and after introducing her as 
 his niece, Ruth, he told her that since her own 
 room was not warm enough for reading, she 
 would better stay in the library. She went 
 back to her book, and my friend and I talked 
 over the changes in town and people during 
 the thirty years since I had first left it. As he 
 was several years younger than I, the Highbank 
 even of his boyhood was different from that of 
 mine ; and he had watched all the changes of 
 later years. 
 
 Arthur soon left the room to hunt up some 
 old maps, and I found an object of absorbing 
 interest in the face by the fireside. The child 
 was reading intently, and could not know that I 
 was watching her. I had never before so much 
 regretted that I was not an artist. In the deep 
 blue eyes, the fair brow, the brown hair, and 
 the rich coloring and delicate shading of abound- 
 13
 
 ing health in the cheeks, one saw the essential 
 quality of all beauty. As in a summer sunrise, 
 the material, earthly though it was, transcended 
 itself and told only of the ethereal. No slight- 
 est blemish or crude outline reminded of the 
 trammels of the flesh. The physical was there 
 only to translate the spirituality into earthly 
 life. 
 
 As I watched, a smile played about her lips ; 
 and then a convulsive shrug of the shoulders 
 told of the laugh which is half of humor, half 
 of sympathy. In another moment tears suffused 
 her eyes, and she threw up her head to look at 
 the ceiling until they should go. She soon 
 returned to her book ; but before she turned 
 the page, a convulsive, half-stifled sob stopped 
 the reading. When she noticed that I was 
 watching her, the color rose to her face, and 
 she closed the book. 
 
 " Have you finished your book ? " I asked. 
 
 "No, sir; not quite." 
 
 " I should n't think you would want to stop, 
 then ; for it seems very interesting." 
 
 She made no response. 
 14
 
 "Is your book sad?" I asked. 
 
 "No, sir; not especially." 
 
 " You make me very curious, you see. The 
 story must have been a true one." 
 
 "No, sir; I don't think it is." 
 
 I felt that fear of showing too much feeling 
 before a stranger had brought the reading to so 
 sudden a close. I was curious to draw her out, 
 and to see in what spirit she did her reading. 
 I looked at her face again carefully before ven- 
 turing with my next remark. 
 
 " Some people, you know, say that it is 
 foolish to laugh and cry with the heroes and 
 heroines of stories. They ask why we should 
 care about things that never really happened." 
 
 " I don't know whether I ever thought of it 
 before," she said. She put her hand to her 
 forehead for a moment, as if she had been asked 
 a puzzling question in school. I began to wish 
 that I had not carried her the suggestion. 
 " Is n't it well," she asked at last, hesitatingly, 
 " to be moved by any beautiful thing, even if 
 it 's only the thought of some one who writes 
 stories? I don't know about the sad parts, 
 15
 
 though, whether it is n't foolish to cry over 
 them unless unless somehow it does our 
 hearts good and makes them more tender to have 
 sympathy with real trouble." 
 
 " You have given a pretty good answer to the 
 critics. As you grow older, you will probably 
 realize it more and more. I think likely that 
 you had been reading about some kind-hearted 
 person just before you helped that little negro 
 boy this afternoon." 
 
 " I don't think that was very kind," she an- 
 swered, with a pleased smile and a faint blush ; 
 "I enjoyed it as much as he did." 
 
 " It was all the kinder of you to do it with- 
 out stopping to think whether it was kind or not. 
 You can make a great many people happy in a 
 lifetime, if you are always as eager to help." 
 
 " I 'm sure it is n't hard to do that sort of 
 thing," was the simple reply. 
 
 Arthur now returned with the maps. Soon 
 Ruth went off to bed. When she had gone, I 
 asked about her. 
 
 " She is the orphaned daughter of my wife's 
 sister," he replied. " Mrs. Thomas and I wish 
 16
 
 to keep her with us, but the other branches of 
 the family insist on having her with them a part 
 ot every year. As a result, the poor child has 
 no home, or, rather, has several homes. We 
 do not have very much of her ; for Mrs. Thomas 
 was much younger than Ruth's mother, and the 
 older aunts insist that they have stronger claims 
 to her. Everybody wants her. She comes to 
 us as a godsend ; and when she leaves us, we 
 begin to look forward to her coming back. I 
 can't help loving her almost as if she were my 
 own. I can hardly believe that a child of my 
 own would be so thoroughly lovable." 
 
 On the last day of my stay in Highbank, I 
 wandered out to Black Pond, which had been 
 from time immemorial the favorite skating-ground 
 of the town. The day was clear and very cold, 
 but the air was dry. It was such a day that 
 one's body seemed meant to soar, and one be- 
 came impatient because something one hardly 
 knew what kept one tied to earth. I could 
 not resist the temptation to try skates once more. 
 I knew that people would be inclined to laugh 
 at an old man on skates ; but I have a theory 
 17
 
 that the best way to keep from growing old is to 
 keep up the wise interests of youth. 
 
 As I skated toward the secluded cove where 
 I once learned to make the figure eight on skates, 
 I passed a group of girls who seemed to find it 
 hard to play their game of tag in harmony. One 
 was asserting, in a loud and peevish tone, that 
 she had tagged another, and the other was strenu- 
 ously denying it. So violent was the quarrel 
 that if the players had been boys I should have 
 looked for blows. The dispute was finally 
 settled, but the sullen looks remained. 
 
 When I reached the entrance of the cove, I 
 found three girls in possession. Two were 
 standing still, watching the third. Few people 
 were near that part of the pond, and the young 
 skater had abandoned herself to the whim of the 
 moment. I had never before known a woman 
 or girl to have such mastery over skates. You 
 have seen a dog on a joyous summer day run- 
 ning across the fields with all his might, darting 
 into a thicket, jumping over a stream, chasing a 
 bird, leaping at a butterfly, and then bounding 
 back to his master, only to bound off again and 
 ll
 
 repeat it all. The same healthy, passionate 
 joy in mere existence seemed to move in the 
 young girl's muscles. Rolls and spins and 
 changes of edge succeeded each other in rapid 
 succession. Now and then a graceful little leap 
 seemed to launch her spirit away from all limi- 
 tations of the body into the air, as a bird sent out 
 with a joyous message. I entered the cove as 
 soon as she stopped. Her eyes, her cheeks, the 
 very pose of her body, spoke of thrilled energy. 
 When I had approached, I saw that it was my 
 friend's niece. 
 
 "Ah, my dear," said I, "I wish you had 
 been like this when I was a boy. This was 
 my favorite cove, and many a trick I practised 
 here; but I never learned to do any of them 
 better than you did just now. I would have 
 given a good deal, forty or fifty years ago, for a 
 girl companion who could skate like that." 
 
 "I thought no one would see me here," she 
 answered with a smile. " Auntie says it is n't 
 nice for girls to skate so freely in public; it 
 attracts attention. I don't mean," she added 
 hastily, "that my skating was good enough to 
 19
 
 attract attention, for I know it was n't ; but 
 people are n't used to seeing girls hop about so 
 freely on skates, and so might think that I liked 
 to attract notice." 
 
 "I can't say that your aunt is wrong on 
 general principles; but surely there can be no 
 harm in your skating as freely as you like in this 
 secluded place. It could do no harm if a few 
 people did see you ; it would only cheer them 
 up and put new life into them as it did into me. 
 Won't you skate once round the pond with 
 me? Perhaps, then, I can catch something of 
 your inspiration." 
 
 Though her exercise had been violent and 
 long continued, her hand was firm, and her 
 stroke showed none of the unsteadiness of knee 
 and ankle which the exhausted skater tries in 
 vain to conceal. 
 
 When we reached the group of girls who 
 were playing tag, another dispute was in progress. 
 Ruth excused herself on the ground that she had 
 promised to join the game after a few moments 
 of skating in the cove. Her coming was greeted 
 with cries of " Here 's Ruth ; we '11 leave it 
 
 20
 
 to her ! " The question seemed a knotty one. 
 The solution was original; I suspected that it 
 was characteristic of the solver. 
 
 " I can't decide it, girls," she exclaimed after 
 a few moments of puzzling. " I '11 be ' it ' my- 
 self; that 's the easiest way to settle it." 
 
 With a smiling face she started after the best 
 skaters, leaving the smaller girls and the poorer 
 skaters opportunity to escape. I watched the 
 group for a long time, but I heard no more dis- 
 putes. Once the situation was critical, but a 
 word turned it. 
 
 " What 's the use of getting angry ? " I heard 
 her say ; " you '11 have to get over it, and that 's 
 what hurts the most." 
 
 The girls laughed, and good-nature was 
 restored. 
 
 Most of the skaters walked back to town. 
 I was glad to find a place in the middle of the 
 line. Few companies suggest pleasanter things 
 than a homeward-bound skating-party at tea- 
 time, the afternoon of sport, the invigoration 
 of spirit following from the tiring of the muscles, 
 the cheerful home tea-table, where one finds, 
 
 21
 
 not only the reality of what hunger already sees 
 in vision, but willing ears for eager lips to fill 
 with a day's experiences. 
 
 I was much interested in the talk of two 
 boys behind me ; evidently something had gone 
 wrong in school. I could make out only that 
 one of the girls had been sent home for insub- 
 ordination, and that some of the scholars took 
 her part and others condemned her. 
 
 When the boys turned the corner, I slackened 
 my pace in the hope that another interesting 
 couple would come within hearing. I had not 
 long to wait. It happened, however, that Ruth 
 came up behind me, and I did not feel justified 
 in lagging and overhearing the conversation. I 
 caught only a word now and then, sometimes 
 in her voice, sometimes in that of a boy of fifteen 
 or thereabouts, and occasionally I heard her light 
 laugh. Just before we reached the town, they 
 passed me, and I heard her words. 
 
 " I don't care," she was saying ; " I don't 
 believe there is any sense in what Miss Paterson 
 wanted me to do. Uncle Arthur said he 
 couldn't understand what good it could do.
 
 I don't intend to waste my time in that way ; 
 they may suspend me if they like, or even expel 
 me. I suppose it 's an awful thing for a girl to 
 be expelled from school ; but I said I would n't 
 do that work until I saw some reason for it, and 
 I won't. Miss Paterson refuses to give any 
 sensible reason, and that 's the end of it. I 
 suppose it 's very wicked, but I can't help it. 
 They may punish me " 
 
 I heard no more. The next day I left 
 Highbank.
 
 III. 
 
 IT is strange that for years our eyes will 
 remain closed to some one or more of the 
 best interests of life. Sometimes, after years of 
 blindness, a chance opens them suddenly. I 
 found in my friend's niece something which 
 threw new light on young girls. In my eyes 
 they suddenly became interesting. Few men 
 go through life without a season of interest in 
 girlhood. Some have it early ; but then it is 
 almost sure, to use a university phrase, to turn 
 to specialization, and become worse than useless. 
 Others have it late, and soon outgrow it ; or 
 rather, should I not say, grow away from it, 
 for is there such a thing as growing above it? 
 As the years had gone on with me, and I had 
 become a confirmed bachelor, girls became more 
 and more foreign to my life. I had known the 
 children of my friends ; but when these had 
 grown to be men and women, I knew no chil- 
 dren. One really knows but two generations 
 24
 
 besides one's own, the one above and the one 
 below. We are not likely to be quite in touch 
 with the second remove. 
 
 What little I saw of my friend's niece taught 
 me that I had for years closed my eyes to per- 
 haps the most interesting phase of human devel- 
 opment, that from girlhood to womanhood. 
 Suddenly I found that my eyes were invariably 
 caught by a braid of girlish hair. So it must 
 be with any man when his eyes are opened. 
 The braid is the sign of almost all that is unlike 
 himself. The horizon that its wearer knows 
 is so small, and perchance so clear, so beautiful ! 
 She knows a mother's and a father's tender love, 
 and the no less tender but disguised love of a 
 tormenting brother or sister; she fancies that 
 her friends are true to her; duty is clear, 'tis 
 nothing more nor less than obedience to parents 
 and the love of God ; her castles in the air are 
 so bright that it matters little that they lack 
 definition ; she fancies the love of husband and 
 of children coming to round out the love she 
 already knows ; and she fancies that they come 
 as calmly, unquestioned and unquestionable.
 
 Her horizon is the horizon of day, all, even 
 in the far distance, is calm, clear-cut, compre- 
 hensible. And we whose horizon is that of 
 night, we who look on and on and on and see 
 myriads of stars, driven by immutable, awful 
 powers, coming whence and bound whither 
 we know not, in distances unimaginable, we 
 see that neat braid, swaying with the free girl- 
 ish gait, and we hold our breaths in reverence. 
 What a sacred thing is that innocence ! What 
 a curse must be upon one who breaks it rudely, 
 thrusting the child out suddenly into the black 
 unknown! She will be so terrified until her 
 eyes become used to the darkness, and she can 
 discern the outstretched light of companionship 
 even in those unknown stars, and can feel the 
 unity in all! 
 
 In the years following my visit to Highbank, 
 I had good opportunity to study girls' faces, and 
 to watch their inner development. In order to 
 have access in my leisure to certain historical 
 documents, I had taken up my residence in 
 Madawanipee, one of the few New England 
 cities wise enough to keep its Indian name. I 
 26
 
 soon learned that Madawanipee was justly noted, 
 not only for the excess of the feminine element 
 in its population, but for the attractiveness of 
 that element. 
 
 It was by good fortune that I was received 
 on familiar terms in several families where 
 the children were growing into manhood and 
 womanhood. I came suddenly to realize how 
 empty was the solitude which had of late years 
 marked my way of living. Family life came 
 to have its old meaning, the meaning which 
 made so much of the food of my dreams in 
 youth. 
 
 Yet, though I was a privileged guest in several 
 homes, I found that I was permitted to taste the 
 sorrows rather than the joys of parental care. 
 The children, of course, could make little room 
 in their hearts for the elderly stranger ; and yet 
 my share in the parental solicitude and sorrow, 
 as the young people grew up into broader fields 
 and away from the old paths, was large. 
 
 Thanksgiving Day of my eighth winter in 
 Madawanipee was somehow particularly depress- 
 ing. Everywhere about me families were gath- 
 27
 
 ered together, and most of my older friends had 
 not only children, but grandchildren, at their 
 tables. My nephew, Harry Templeman, who 
 was my only near kin, was visiting in another 
 city. I dined alone. The evening I spent in 
 alternately cherishing and banishing the mem- 
 ory of youthful days and youthful dreams in 
 Highbank. 
 
 I devoted the following day to searching old 
 records at the Court House. I did not care to 
 trust my spirits to less absorbing work. 
 
 At three o'clock I congratulated myself that 
 my plans for the day had been well laid; for 
 success had followed them, and I had almost 
 outlived the depression of yesterday. Never 
 was a clearer line of descent shown in deeds 
 and wills than that which I had traced from 
 John Chambers of Sagadahoc, yeoman, son of 
 Thomas Chambers of England, owner and cul- 
 tivator of certain lands in Massachusetts Bay 
 Colony in 1643. An important link in the 
 historical chain which I was tracing had been 
 found. My work was progressing rapidly in 
 its last stages. 
 
 28
 
 The sun broke out from the clouds, and I 
 looked up from the yellow manuscript to watch 
 the floating cloud-shadows on the hill-tops. The 
 window chanced to be open, and the breeze 
 came gently in and waved my hair. When it 
 ceased, the loosened locks fell down over my 
 forehead, playfully. A zephyr came in, and 
 pushed the hair back. It went, and came again 
 like a woman's fond hand, disarranging and 
 rearranging, every touch a caress. My thoughts 
 ran back many years to the hand which I 
 used to dream would some day rest upon my 
 brow. 
 
 The zephyr quickened to a breeze, and the 
 breeze to a gust of wind. A dozen pages of 
 the manuscript volume before me blew over. 
 When I put the dream aside and looked down 
 at my book, my eye fell on the name of John 
 Chambers, formerly of Falmouth, England, son 
 of Thomas Chambers, of Falmouth, an immi- 
 grant on the ship " Anne " in 1 647. The con- 
 text showed clearly that this was the man whose 
 line I sought to trace. Yet neither John Cham- 
 bers of Sagadahoc nor any of his descendants 
 29
 
 had returned to England, and none of his ances- 
 tors had come from Falmouth. There had 
 been two men named John Chambers in the 
 same neighborhood, of about the same age, sons 
 of fathers named Thomas. Months of labor 
 had been spent on the genealogy of the wrong 
 family. 
 
 The winter afternoon was nearly over ; it 
 was too late to begin a new search. Indeed, I 
 was hardly in the mood for it. It seemed as 
 if nothing that I had ever done or attempted to 
 do was a success. At such times one forgets 
 one's triumphs, especially the things that the 
 world calls triumphs and one's own ambition 
 calls mere make-shifts. I put my papers back 
 into their places and started out to get a little 
 freshness from Nature, if she had any to offer. 
 I struck out of town at random ; I forgot that I 
 had started out after freshness. I forgot that I 
 had ever had any freshness in my life ; perhaps 
 it was true that I had not had much. At all 
 events, it was true that none had been thrust in 
 my way ; what I had found had been eagerly 
 sought. It had been a part of my philoso- 
 30
 
 phy that life was not only accidentally, but 
 essentially, beautiful ; and I had persisted in 
 finding that beauty everywhere. Some of my 
 friends had told me that I forced my imagination 
 to see beauty where there was none. But to- 
 night I gave up, for once, the quest for beauty. 
 Was it not time that life placed some in my 
 way? 
 
 About seven o'clock I passed over Promon- 
 tory Hill on my way back to town. I had no 
 special reason for going back, nor any reason 
 for going on ; I was in the mood in which one 
 has no motive for anything. The lights of the 
 town came into view. There is, at the same 
 time, a singular companionship and a singular 
 isolation in village lights at evening. The blank 
 stare of straight walls and glistening windows is 
 gone ; the walls have relaxed their features into 
 the quieter, mobile lines of night ; each visible 
 window tells some story, the story of a group, 
 or of some lonely one, near by. In the out- 
 lying cottages of the town, the lights were few. 
 As I passed the first, the rays streamed through 
 a small hole in the curtain upon my path. In
 
 fancy I could see the group gathered about the 
 recently cleared dining-table within. 
 
 The father, in his shirt-sleeves, or, more 
 likely, in his jumper, sits in a rocking-chair 
 with his weekly paper spread out before him. 
 One slipper has been kicked off, and lies upside 
 down near his chair. Now and then he stretches 
 out the slipperless foot and strokes the dog which 
 lies under the table. Occasionally he makes a 
 brief comment upon the news of the week, or 
 asks one of the children where is Curacoa, or 
 Heligoland, or Bucharest. A girl of twelve is 
 scanning an arithmetic placed on the table before 
 her. The baby wants a drink of water, and 
 while she gets it for him, the boys take her 
 place near the lamp. When she comes back, 
 her face falls a bit, hardens, brightens again; 
 and without complaint she takes a poorer place, 
 further from the light. The boys are leaning 
 on opposite corners of their chair, with elbows 
 on the table, chins in hand, eagerly discussing 
 the new "St. Nicholas" or "Youth's Com- 
 panion." The patient, tired-faced, but ready- 
 hearted mother is at her mending. When the
 
 last stocking is put aside, a pair of tiny pants in 
 the making takes its place. Long after the chil- 
 dren have gone to bed, the needle will fly. 
 Yet, perchance, she will dip into some book for 
 half an hour, even after the father has gone to 
 bed. 
 
 In that single group are found the four chief 
 types of human thought and feeling. The father 
 has won his place in the world, humble though 
 it is, and he foresees no evil, no new joy ; he 
 is content with the daily life of the shop and 
 the evening group. The boys, too, are con- 
 tent ; but theirs is the content of fearless hope- 
 fulness. For them there is no past, and the future 
 has no fears ; they do not even prepare for it. 
 The day's lessons are learned, or half-learned, 
 and there 's the end of it ; the future will take 
 care of the tasks of the future, and the word 
 " fail " does not enter, even indirectly, into their 
 forecasts. The mother's place in the world, like 
 the father's, has been won ; but it is not joyous. 
 Her work, so nearly infinite, is never done, 
 because strength is finite ; yet her responsibility 
 for the children is even more nearly infinite. 
 33
 
 She longs for time and knowledge to look into 
 the broader world of art and music and litera- 
 ture, that she may open the children's eyes ; but 
 they must be first fed and clothed, and time 
 oh, time ! And so her life is one of thought- 
 lessness of the future for self, but wholly in the 
 future for her children. The daughter is not 
 easy-going, like the boys ; she, too, dreams, 
 perhaps more than they, but her dreams rest 
 so much more on contingencies. See the deter- 
 mination with which she works at her arith- 
 metic, perchance the weariest work she ever 
 did. Life is a bigger word with her than with 
 any of the others. Nature made her with so 
 much to hope for, so little to win with ! 
 
 We must hold out the hand of sympathy to 
 each one in the group, for the father, it is in 
 good fellowship ; for the mother, in pity and 
 praise ; for the boys, in admiration ; but for the 
 girl, in love. We cannot help it. Life is so 
 big a thing for her, and she is so nearly power- 
 less, unhelped, to make it what she would, that 
 nothing less than our whole hearts is worthy of 
 our sympathy. 
 
 34
 
 Across the way, the light in the attic was 
 a lonely one. My fancy could see the poor 
 farmer boy who had come to the town to make 
 his fortune. The world goes hard with him ; 
 or, perchance, goes by easily and leaves him 
 behind. His employers are crabbed. His 
 fellow-workmen are trashy youths about town, 
 always intent on some supper, or smoking-party, 
 or ball, or perhaps a flirtation with some giddy 
 school-girl or worse. The very air they breathe 
 seems tainted with stale tobacco-smoke, or liquor 
 fumes, or strong perfumery from some woman's 
 dress. The thoughts that seem to fill their heads 
 are the sins, real or imaginary, of those they 
 know. They boast of their own transgressions. 
 Even if he goes to church on Sunday, he hears 
 only of" miserable sinners, all." He has begun 
 to wonder whether there is any virtue in the 
 world. Is no one above suspicion ? He thinks 
 of the sweet face whose cheek he kissed the 
 evening before he came away from home. Was 
 she like these people he hears about? Is he 
 alone, in all the world, hungering and thirsting 
 after righteousness, and fighting the evil that 
 35
 
 tempts ? He longs to look squarely into some 
 earnest, pure face, and hear words and see deeds 
 that confirm his faith. Great God, he will go 
 crazy if this unmasking of vice goes on much 
 longer ! But is it vice ? Has he not mistaken 
 what is merely not highest for what is lowest ? 
 The world cannot be all wrong ! It must be 
 he that is wrong. He will give up the old 
 faith ; he will fall into line with the world. 
 He will go out and seek company where it may 
 be found, perhaps for the asking, perhaps only 
 for gold. But, oh, such company ! His heart 
 revolts. He will hold to the old faith one day 
 more, at least. He will stay at home and read 
 his " Othello " or " Cymbeline." Hope will 
 not die yet ! 
 
 As I went further into town, the lights became 
 thicker, not only because the houses were 
 more numerous, but because they were larger. 
 I could fancy the groups about the pianos or 
 library-tables. I felt that if I could only look 
 deep enough, I should find the same story told 
 everywhere. "Hope springs eternal in the 
 human breast." The mother, in the big house 
 36
 
 over there, worries over her wayward son or 
 her vain daughter; but she never gives up. 
 She dreams of the time when their veiled eyes 
 shall be open, and that dream is her life. The 
 young people next door may be discontented, 
 rebellious against fate ; but they grind their teeth 
 in determination, and their joy and they will 
 come some day to confess that it was greater 
 than they knew is in that determination. Per- 
 haps the father has lost his property, and, what 
 he really cares about, his good name is smirched. 
 His dream, his life, is to win that name free of 
 all reproach, and he glories in the effort. 
 
 I came into sight of my own dark window. 
 Suppose it had been lighted and I had been sit- 
 ting within, would that light tell a story of 
 hope ? Had my theory of life failed in my own 
 case ? What was I looking forward to ? Would 
 it make any difference to me, even so far as satis- 
 faction in this life was concerned, if I died to- 
 morrow ? I loved to wander in the woods and 
 fields, to hear the birds and see the flower-life, 
 to encounter winds and rains and watch the 
 changing colors, to read books and hear music ; 
 37
 
 but my life amounted to nothing else. I had 
 no near kin, no near friends. No one welcomed 
 me if I came, missed me if I went. To be 
 sure, the little Flynns rejoiced when I left a bag 
 of apples in my clothes-basket, and the poor 
 consumptive boy in the next street counted the 
 hours till my landlady should appear at his back- 
 gate with a part of my Sunday dinner. (I 
 always wanted my Sunday dinner large enough 
 for two, though I never ate heartily ; and as I 
 disliked to have things wasted, I sent my surplus 
 over to the patient.) My heart was always a 
 bit warmed by the young Flynns' shy smiles 
 when I saw them on the street, and by the 
 consumptive's weekly message ; but such things 
 are not more than surface-deep. It was not I 
 whom they thanked ; it was the giver of a few 
 trifles. That was all they knew of me. What 
 did any one know of me? To some, I was the 
 old man who went to the Court House for a 
 while every day, and spent the rest of the time 
 in the open air ; to others, I was an elderly 
 gentleman who took a little interest in the various 
 kinds of charitable work in town ; to a few, I 
 38
 
 was a tolerably entertaining, occasional evening 
 guest; to my nephew, I was an enigma, like 
 all other elderly men. 
 
 What could such a life as mine amount to? 
 I was not too old to do yet some good ; I could, 
 perhaps, carry comfort or cheer to some one in 
 shadow ; could make some one's hope a reality ; 
 and so my life would mean something to the 
 world. Yet, even then, how much would it 
 mean to me? 
 
 I felt no satisfactory purpose for doing any- 
 thing. I was too listless even to go home. I 
 stopped under a window where I heard singing ; 
 a plaintive melody voiced the words : 
 " The night has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the day but one ; 
 Yet the light of a whole day dies 
 With the setting sun. 
 
 " The mind has a thousand eyes, 
 
 And the heart but one ; 
 Yet the light of a whole life dies 
 When love is done." 
 
 I wandered on mechanically. Yes, it was 
 true ; I could, indeed, do good in the world, and 
 39
 
 make that my life. But even in that where was 
 satisfaction? Even virtue loses its sweetness 
 when no one cares that we are virtuous. I 
 might win gratitude ; but was it worth while ? 
 Gratitude binds hearts closer, but it also keeps 
 them from touching. Life is not wholly lived 
 unless the heart is so close to another that even 
 gratitude cannot pass between. It is not enough 
 to find some one to serve ; that some one must 
 care that it is I who serve. I had none to care ; 
 none had ever cared. 
 
 The sky was now clear. The moon had 
 risen above the houses, and was shedding its 
 soft light upon the snow. The shadows of the 
 bare trees were spread in delicate tracery over 
 the snow-drifts; I could not help stopping to 
 admire. The hand of man never made any- 
 thing so beautiful. I forgot, for the moment, 
 that I had been disconsolate. I could not help 
 being thankful for that beauty. Then came the 
 question : Is it like a child pleased with a toy 
 that I thank God for this beauty, or do I thank 
 Him for Himself? Do I love Him merely as 
 a giver of gifts, or do I love Him for Him- 
 40
 
 self? Could I offer God less than I asked for 
 myself? 
 
 Despair had come in ; but when I had come 
 to myself there was no room for it, hope had 
 driven it out. I had merely forgotten, for a 
 moment, how much One cared. There was a 
 goal yet to push for. To be sure, in the past, 
 the goals had slipped mysteriously away, even 
 as I was about to touch them, and the heart 
 had been often sore; but I had learned how 
 strangely forgotten! that though the goals of 
 life are many, they are all in the same race, 
 reaching toward the fulness of the stature of him 
 they call Jesus the Christ. The goals midway 
 are but to cheer. We run more easily for seeing 
 a distance-mark near at hand. What matters 
 it though the goal slips away even before our 
 eyes ? The race is no longer. We have merely 
 lost the help of cheer by the way. We may 
 even rejoice more heartily that we shall win 
 uncheered. 
 
 My courage came back. I even thought 
 with pleasure of the concert with which Mada- 
 wanipee was to be favored that evening. The 
 4*
 
 orchestra, which came from the city, was famous. 
 The programme, too, was admirably suited to 
 my mood. 
 
 The concert began with the glorious Fifth 
 Symphony of Beethoven. As I listened, eyes 
 closed, I fancied that I saw at the other end of 
 the row a familiar face, a face that has been 
 before my eyes in memory for many years. I 
 lived over again one evening in my student-life 
 in Berlin. 
 
 It was a stormy night, that night in Berlin ; 
 but the company was light-hearted. At the 
 other end of the row sat " My Glorious One,*' 
 as I called her to myself, and so I was light- 
 hearted, too. All day I had feared that she was 
 ill, for she had been absent from a morning 
 company in which I had expected to see her; 
 but at the door we had just had a word together, 
 and she had made me happy by treating as sin- 
 cere the earnestness of my inquiry whether she 
 had been ill. The first movement of the sym- 
 phony carried me out of myself into another 
 world. Yet, in the second movement, it was 
 hard to live in any world at all, the pleasure 
 42
 
 of living was almost a pain. I wanted to cry 
 out for just a little less of the exquisite thrill 
 which was running through me. It was doubly 
 rich because I knew that Agnes was hearing and 
 feeling it all. At the end of the movement I 
 turned my head and opened my eyes. Her 
 eyes were still closed; but the face, which was 
 set off by the spotlessness of a white opera cloak 
 and a crown of rich waving hair, was radiant. 
 As I watched, she lifted her head, and her eyes 
 fell upon me. She gave me a quick smile of 
 sympathy. Once more, at the end of the con- 
 cert, the same look was given me ; and then I 
 hurried away by dark, unfrequented ways, lest 
 I should see some unsightly thing. I even 
 grudged the streets entry to my eyes. I wanted 
 to get away to the bridge, where I might look 
 up into the sky and let that smile imprint itself 
 upon my memory. I felt it slipping from me 
 before I could fix it firmly. Oh, poor, weak 
 imagination ! The vision was at best but inter- 
 mittent. I went home disconsolate. I had 
 failed to make the vision mine, and she might 
 never smile upon me so again ! 
 43
 
 How many times I had thought of that even- 
 ing in Berlin ! Even here in Madawanipee, 
 years after, I could see and feel it all again. At 
 the end of the second movement of the sym- 
 phony, I opened my eyes, expecting to see the 
 monotonous array of semi-animated Madawani- 
 pee Sunday-best. The majority of such audi- 
 ences are stoical, or are they even brutally 
 inappreciative ? Yet this was not what I saw. 
 Was I still dreaming? Was not that the same 
 face, the hair, the brow, the closed eyes, the 
 coloring, the lips, the chin ? While I was gaz- 
 ing, startled, the young woman opened her eyes ; 
 they were blue like the sea. Then I knew that 
 I was not dreaming. Yet, in another moment, 
 it was hard to be assured. Her face lighted 
 with a smile that was quick, free, sympathetic. 
 At the same moment, as she turned to speak, I 
 heard tones that seemed to have come unbidden 
 from my quickened memory. The tap of the 
 conductor's baton reassured me that I was not 
 dreaming. 
 
 It was thirty-five years ago that I had parted 
 from "My Glorious One." It then seemed
 
 incredible that God should have shown to me 
 so much of earth's nobility if I were to be robbed 
 of it forever. So in faith and hope and memory 
 she lived with me for twenty years, and then 
 she died. 
 
 Now perhaps my faith was justified. Was 
 not this the same soul returned to earth in almost 
 the same garb ? If it had come back to earth, 
 could it come back to me ? Would it know 
 me ? Would it scorn my years ? From the 
 orchestra, which had gone on to the Liebestod 
 from Wagner's " Tristan und Isolde," seemed 
 to come my answer. Even death cannot sepa- 
 rate those who cling to each other. But I had no 
 reason to think that Agnes cared even to remem- 
 ber me, or had ever cared. Perhaps the 
 likeness of my old love had come back to taunt 
 me! 
 
 I looked into the girl's face again, and the fear 
 fled. There could be nothing but cheer in 
 those eyes and those lips and that brow. I had 
 a curious feeling that they brought cheer in spe- 
 cial measure for me. At the same time the 
 orchestra took up a triumphal march, serious in 
 45
 
 tone and rich in harmony. When we came 
 out upon the sidewalk, the spell had not been 
 wholly broken. I was living half in the past, 
 half in the present. I must hear that voice 
 once more. The young woman was but a 
 little way ahead of me, and by dint of hurrying 
 through the crowd I secured a place directly 
 behind her. She was talking about the con- 
 cert, but I seemed to hear a different story, 
 an old story, as old as the world, as old to me 
 almost as my manhood. I was tempted to fol- 
 low the voice as far as I could, but I refrained. 
 Instead, after her party turned into a cross street, 
 I hurried home, lighted a candle in front of an 
 old daguerreotype upon my mantel, pulled my 
 easy-chair before the open fire, and gave myself 
 up to dreaming. 
 
 An hour later, my nephew tapped at my 
 door. I did not let him in. Was it jealousy 
 of youth that stayed my hand upon the latch ? 
 
 46
 
 IV. 
 
 SUNDAY was raw and sunless. There 
 was not even a breeze to give something 
 of life, something to struggle against, and call 
 out energy. Great masses of leaden clouds 
 were lying heavily in the east. Now and then 
 the faint outline of the sun could be perceived 
 through the thinner clouds in the south, but it 
 never gave even a promise of sunshine. The 
 west was a monotonous gray. The atmosphere 
 seemed to press upon one from all sides, and to 
 penetrate every garment until it bore with all its 
 rawness on one's very flesh. The light snow 
 which had fallen early in the week had been 
 but partially carried off by the daily thaws, and 
 yet it had been but half frozen by night ; it 
 was lying in patches, smutty, soft, characterless. 
 Even the church bells were oppressed by the 
 day ; their vibrations fell heavy on the unbuoy- 
 ant air. When I stepped out of the house on 
 my way to church, I thought half the popula- 
 47
 
 tion of Madawanipee must be widowed. Three- 
 fourths of the women were in black. Even the 
 people who were supposed to be gay seemed 
 to shrink within their clothes to get away from 
 the harsh air. 
 
 A couple of my chance acquaintances hap- 
 pened to be passing. I fell into the line of 
 church-goers behind them, and overheard their 
 conversation. 
 
 " On such a morning," said one, " you forget 
 that there ever was any sun, either for light or 
 for warmth. You find it hard to be thankful 
 for anything." 
 
 " Very true ; and it 's hard to be hopeful for 
 the future. We fear that when January i comes 
 round, the balance will be on the wrong side 
 of the balance-sheet. It 's lucky the feeling 
 goes off when the sun comes out." 
 
 " Yes ; I feel the change coming already. 
 Look over there." As he spoke, he jerked his 
 head to indicate the other side of the street. 
 
 A little girl, about three years old, wrapped 
 in white, was approaching us. Every moment 
 or two she looked back over her shoulder, as 
 4 8
 
 she trotted laughingly along, half running, half 
 walking. A boy of five or six was pretending 
 to chase her. Their cheeks were red, and their 
 eyes were sparkling. The girl was chuckling 
 with delight. Behind came a young woman, 
 who encouraged the child by an occasional wave 
 of the hand. When the little one had been 
 caught, both children returned to her. The 
 group was indeed a bit of sunshine. The 
 young woman in the centre walked with light, 
 well-poised step ; the chubby little tottering 
 figure on her right was looking up into her face, 
 while the tongue told its broken story ; on the 
 left, and in advance, the boy was half walking, 
 half hopping, now sideways, now backwards, 
 trying, yet with patience, to get a chance to give 
 his version of the story. One could not look 
 at the six bright eyes and six red cheeks and call 
 the day cold and dreary. 
 
 As they passed, I saw that the young woman 
 was the one whom I had seen at the concert. 
 The men in front of me were still watching. 
 
 " That 's what it is to be young," said one 
 of them. 
 
 49
 
 "No, my friend," I interrupted, "that's 
 not what it is to be young. Look at those 
 young people ahead of you, dull of face, 
 half-crouching with fear of cold, listless in step. 
 What you see across the street, in the young 
 woman, at least, is not youth of years, but 
 youth of heart." 
 
 There is one thing in an old bachelor's life 
 that even the gayest youth may envy: he is 
 utterly independent, unless, indeed, he has 
 allowed himself to get into ruts which have no 
 cross-cuts. I come and go as the whim takes 
 me ; or does it better become my dignity to say 
 that I come and go as my reason dictates ? I 
 change my dinner hour from six to seven, and 
 yet .1 need not hurry to meet evening engage- 
 ments. I forget to go to the post-office for two 
 or three days, and it does n't matter. I go to 
 bed at ten, or at two, or not at all, as I take a 
 notion, and nobody protests, unless my own 
 nerves and digestive apparatus must be recog- 
 nized as somebody. I am too lazy to get a 
 new suit of clothes when the season changes, 
 and the same laziness continues season after sea- 
 5
 
 son, and yet nobody looks askance. I may go 
 to a strange church several weeks in succession, 
 and yet our little Madawanipee world does not 
 wonder what sudden " attraction " I have 
 found. 
 
 So when the group which I had been watch- 
 ing turned toward the Baptist church, I immedi- 
 ately changed my own intention, and followed. 
 I was curious to see more of the young woman. 
 Besides, I should have an opportunity to see 
 something of one of the interesting girls who 
 had grown up before my eyes. Miss Campbell 
 was just behind the others. Harry, my nephew, 
 was with her. She looked as if she were shiver- 
 ing with the cold. For once she was not 
 stately. She turned her head as I approached. 
 
 " Good-morning, Mr. Robertson. Are n't 
 we all very pious this morning ? " 
 
 ' We appear so outwardly. I can't speak 
 for our conditions within." 
 
 "If we are as humble inwardly as we look 
 
 outwardly, we must be in very humble frames 
 
 of mind," said Harry. " I have just been 
 
 telling Miss Campbell that she looks as if she 
 
 5*
 
 did n't dare say her soul 's her own this morn- 
 ing. This weather does n't agree with her." 
 
 " But if I freeze to death," Miss Campbell 
 answered, with a triumphant smile, "my soul 
 departs this life, and then it is n't my own any 
 longer. Besides, would n't it be a bit blasphe- 
 mous to go to church declaring that one's soul 
 is one's own ? It seems to me that I hear noth- 
 ing else in church but that my soul is n't my 
 own." 
 
 " In other words, you listen to only about 
 one sermon in ten," suggested Harry. 
 
 " I 'm not going to talk to you any more," 
 she exclaimed, with a pout. " You are not in 
 the proper mood for church-going. I 'm going 
 to talk to Mr. Robertson." 
 
 " What is the proper mood for church- 
 going ? " persisted Harry. 
 
 " Oh, a spirit of reverence and adoration and 
 saying your prayers, and all that sort of thing." 
 
 " That 's just my mood. Have n't you seen 
 adoration in my eyes every time you 've looked 
 into them this morning, and have n't I been 
 making sundry petitions ? "
 
 She could not repress the smile that came 
 unwelcomed, but she did not look at him. 
 
 " Mr. Robertson," she said, " your nephew 
 has been trying to persuade me that I ought to 
 join the party which is going down to Hamp- 
 ton to-morrow to see the opening of the new 
 academy. Don't you agree " 
 
 " Pardon me," Harry broke in ; "but I don't 
 try to persuade people. I was trying to prove 
 to you that you ought to go." 
 
 She looked at him, and laughed archly. 
 
 " I was n't talking to you," she said. 
 
 " But you were talking about me." 
 
 " You ought not to object to that," I sug- 
 gested. 
 
 " But she was maligning me. " 
 
 " How ? " she asked. 
 
 " You said I persuaded. That 's a woman's 
 way ; men prove, not persuade. " 
 
 She looked him over with feigned new interest. 
 
 " In other words, you are neither man nor 
 woman," she said ; " for by your own confes- 
 sion you don't persuade, and most certainly you 
 did n't prove." 
 
 53
 
 We were now at the church door. I did 
 not hear the rest of the mock controversy 
 between them. 
 
 So far as the service was concerned, our 
 selection of churches was poorly made. The 
 preacher may have been a very worthy man, 
 but his worth did not lie in his choice of mes- 
 sages for the congregation. He spent his half- 
 hour in trying to reconcile us to the existence 
 of poverty on the ground that the Bible sanc- 
 tions it, that is, recognizes it. 
 
 Most of the people soon decided that it was 
 not worth while to listen to so childish a phi- 
 losophy. Every one was in quest of some occu- 
 pation. Even the children realized that less 
 repression than usual was to be exercised against 
 them. The little three-year-old whom I had 
 watched on the street soon learned that if she 
 could content herself with communication by 
 means of eyes and smiles she need not lack for 
 playmates. Her face was a marvel of mobility. 
 The tiny mouth had scores of silent stories 
 to tell ; with the aid of eyes and nose, it had, 
 perhaps, hundreds. 
 
 54
 
 At first, though but two pews separated us, 
 she did not think of counting me as one of her 
 playmates. As she kneeled in her seat and sur- 
 veyed the audience behind, her sweet, dimpled 
 face was too charming to be looked at coldly. I 
 smiled by myself as I watched her. She caught 
 the smile, and thought that it was meant for 
 her; but she did not return it. In a moment 
 she looked back archly to see whether I was 
 watching her. I scowled slightly, and she 
 turned away with a puzzled expression. When 
 she looked at me again, I pretended that I did 
 not see her ; but by directing my line of vision 
 just above her head I could still catch the ex- 
 pression of her face. She was a trifle piqued. 
 Could so young a girl be a thorough coquette ? 
 Did the perplexed look on her face mean that 
 she was puzzling out how to get my attention 
 again ? I did not keep her long waiting ; I 
 feared to lose so charming a flirtation. I dropped 
 my eyes to a level with hers. She turned her 
 head slowly away, but kept her eyes on mine 
 until the angle became uncomfortable ; then the 
 little chin went down behind the pew-back, the 
 55
 
 nose disappeared, and soon I could see only 
 the hat and eyebrows. In another moment I 
 saw two bright eyes. A bewitching, half- 
 suppressed little smile made its appearance over 
 the pew. It was too much for my gravity ; I 
 smiled outright, half in answer, half in amuse- 
 ment. Her smile could be no longer suppressed. 
 I had won her little heart. 
 
 Yet, true to her woman nature, she was 
 conscience-stricken at her confession. She clam- 
 bered back to her place, and gave her attention 
 to the people in front of her. I could see, 
 however, that the fruits behind were still very 
 tempting, for she half turned several times. I 
 could watch the course of gradual surrender. 
 It was surely not wrong to face the back of the 
 church ! So she resumed her kneeling position. 
 Eyes, mouth, and tiny turned-up nose for in 
 mobile faces even noses can talk held a long 
 conference on the relative advantages of obeying 
 conscience and of flirting with a stranger. The 
 mouth insisted on flirting ; the eyes inclined 
 to it now and then, though they occasionally 
 repented long enough at a time to put on a very 
 56
 
 serious air ; but the nose, in spite of a tendency 
 toward jollity, was uncompromising in its adher- 
 ence to the strictly legitimate. The conversa- 
 tion ran somewhat like this : 
 
 " I wonder whether he is looking at me. I 
 believe he is, and I 'm glad ; but I must n't let 
 him know it. Of course he does n't expect 
 me to smile at him. I believe he does ; but 
 I won't smile at a stranger. I wonder why he 
 wants me to. How pleasant he looks ! It 
 makes me want to smile. Oh, dear, it 's 
 coming, and I can't help it ! But I must n't. 
 There, I did n't ; but he ought not to look 
 at me so steadily. Now what is he laughing 
 at ? I want very much to know. I shall have 
 to smile, too, if he does n't stop. Here it is ! 
 and what a nice smile he gave me ! Was n't 
 it nice ? Let 's try again ! There ! What 
 fun ! But perhaps it 's naughty. I think I '11 
 turn round." 
 
 By this time, her little brother had become 
 solicitous for her moral welfare. The differ- 
 ence in age was just enough to give him almost 
 a paternal interest in the tiny bit of mortality at 
 57
 
 his side. He spoke to the young woman. She 
 smiled into the baby's face, and cuddled it close 
 to her side. 
 
 At the close of the service, I heard her rich 
 contralto voice ringing out in the grand old 
 " Dennis." 
 
 I walked down the aisle with Mrs. Pembroke, 
 the leader in the social life of Madawanipee and 
 the prime mover in most of our charitable enter- 
 prises; for in our quiet town the two positions 
 are not at all incompatible. In the vestibule 
 we paused to complete our arrangements for a 
 meeting of the associated charities. 
 
 "Pardon me a moment," she exclaimed 
 suddenly, as she started forward. 
 
 " Ruth, I am delighted to see you. I heard 
 that you had come, but I have n't caught a 
 glimpse of you before." I turned, and found 
 her talking to the stranger in whom I had become 
 so much interested. " What a fortunate woman 
 Mrs. Loring is ! " 
 
 "I 'm sure I 'm glad to be with her, and to 
 visit Madawanipee again. It does n't seem to 
 change much." 
 
 58
 
 " No, but we want to bring about a few 
 changes. Mr. Robertson and I were just talk- 
 ing about one of them. Perhaps out of your 
 experience in Boston you can help us. Let me 
 introduce Mr. Robertson, if you have n't met 
 him." 
 
 And so, suddenly, what had seemed hardly 
 more real than a vision or a dream of the past 
 became a concrete reality, which I could bow 
 to, and even speak to by so commonplace a 
 name as " Miss Appleton." 
 
 59
 
 V. 
 
 FEW of the smaller New England cities 
 afford material for greater variety of expe- 
 rience than Madawanipee. The heart of the 
 city is alive with brisk commerce. The resi- 
 dence portion is divided so distinctly that it is 
 literally true that one half does not know how 
 the other half lives, indeed, does not know 
 the English-French that the other half speaks. 
 This latter half lives on the plain below the 
 mills. Its streets and door-yards are devoid of 
 green, or other rest for the eye. Everything 
 centres about the mills, and has the unmistakable 
 factory air. The very people have been con- 
 verted, to a certain extent, into machines. They 
 take even their pleasures in a machine-like way, 
 as if all were on the prospectus, and must be 
 taken in due season. Perhaps their chief charac- 
 teristic is that common to most factory popu- 
 lations, their lives lack the contemplative 
 60
 
 element; in their eyes everything is not only 
 objective, but practically devoid of relationships. 
 
 At the other end of the city, life is taken in 
 different fashion, at least, so it seems to the 
 livers. Every house has its lawn, small though 
 it may be, and grassy, shady sidewalks invite to 
 cool saunterings. Many of the houses are old, 
 and here and there one lifts its massive pillars 
 to the eaves and reminds of the days when the 
 men of the region lived to get the meaning out 
 of life, and not merely to acquire. The electric 
 cars have made their ravages, and the railroad 
 takes and leaves travellers by its score of trains 
 a day ; but these serve only to extend a little 
 of the bustle of the business world into the quiet 
 streets where the townsman never takes it. 
 
 The city lies in the valley of a river large 
 enough to give a sense of great power, and yet 
 not too large for picturesqueness. Into this 
 river flows the Madawa, deep, silent, wind- 
 ing, fringed to the water's edge with low- 
 hanging trees, and narrow enough for most 
 satisfactory canoeing. It was locally known as 
 "the stream." The town is built on the pen- 
 61
 
 insula formed by the two rivers. It lies at the 
 centre of a large farming district; and for the 
 accommodation of the farmers, roads run into 
 it from all directions, like spokes of a wheel 
 converging at the hub. These are connected 
 by cross-roads at various intervals, and thus by 
 keeping on one of the peripheries of the wheel, 
 as it were, one can take a walk of respectable 
 length without getting far from town ; or, if one 
 wills, one can plunge straight into the country 
 by a few minutes' walk from the post-office. 
 My favorite walk, both for summer and winter, 
 was to follow up the larger river as far as time 
 would allow, then to strike across country to 
 the Madawa, and finally to follow that down to 
 town. I found almost as much enjoyment in 
 winter as in summer. The flowers and birds 
 were gone ; but the snow, the winter winds, 
 and the solitude were fruit for new sensations. 
 I scandalized many of the prim ones among the 
 townspeople by spending much of my leisure 
 in summer in my canoe, and in winter on snow- 
 shoes. In their minds, everything but walking 
 and riding was beyond the pale of dignified pro- 
 f
 
 cedure for a man of my years ; but the obliga- 
 tion of being dignified I never more than half 
 recognized, especially when one's vocabulary so 
 abuses the word. 
 
 Thus it happened that, out of the mere love 
 of sport, I was out one bitter morning in Jan- 
 uary to encounter the power of the winds. I 
 was surprised, as I crossed the last field to the 
 Madawa, to see before me, on the bank of the 
 stream, a girlish figure braced against the gusts. 
 As I approached, I saw that it was Miss Apple- 
 ton. The crust was hard, and she walked as 
 easily as upon a floor. Now and then she stooped 
 to pick up a bit of snow-crust that her foot had 
 broken, and threw it at some tree or out upon 
 the ice. Sometimes when a fierce gust was 
 blowing, she threw back the hood which pro- 
 tected her face, shook her head, and let the wind 
 blow through her hair. If a tree stood in her 
 path on the steep bank, she swung herself around 
 it as easily as boys swing around a lamp-post. 
 Her step was so light and springing that the 
 crust seemed rather a guide than a support. 
 Every motion, whether of head or arm or foot, 
 63
 
 was but the escape of pent-up vitality. Of 
 effort, there was none. She revelled in the 
 closeness of her touch with Nature, the white 
 fields, the silent stream, the trees she brushed 
 against, the wanton wind. 
 
 I came upon her just as she had thrown back 
 her hood. Before I had time to say good- 
 morning, she had replaced it. 
 
 " Is n't this glorious ? " she exclaimed. 
 
 " Indeed it is. Every bit of the morning is 
 every bit glorious." 
 
 " What a pity that people don't come out on 
 such a day ! Everybody stays at home by the 
 fire and nurses her and his ability to take 
 cold." 
 
 " Do you know that you have solved a prob- 
 lem for me ? I have wondered all my life why 
 most people take cold so easily. Their ability 
 in that direction is almost unlimited. You have 
 hit the explanation, they nurse it." 
 
 "One might say more than that: they not 
 
 only nurse, but nourish it. I cannot understand 
 
 them. It is so joyous to be out in a cold gale, 
 
 when the wind blows through one's clothing 
 
 64
 
 until even one's flesh is cold to the touch, and 
 at the same time one feels the blood coursing 
 through the arteries from the vigor of exercise. 
 It 's exhilarating, like keeping a wild beast at 
 bay, and crying out to it, ' I may feel your teeth 
 and you may scratch, but you can't bite ; your 
 power is only skin-deep.' " 
 
 As she finished speaking, we reached a place 
 where the bank was not very steep. 
 
 "Don't be alarmed," she cried, gayly. 
 
 She took a few quick steps and a light spring, 
 and before I could tell what she was about to 
 do, she was sliding down over the hard crust 
 toward the ice. I expected to see a fall ; but 
 when I saw her figure sway and bend gently to 
 the one side or the other, accommodating its 
 balance to the curves of the surface, I saw that 
 I was watching no novice. A canoe never ran 
 a rapid more gracefully. I was tempted to fol- 
 low her; but it would have been unwise to 
 trust my brittle bones in attempts to follow so 
 lively a leader. She was back at my side almost 
 as soon as I had made up my mind not to follow. 
 
 " Why did 't you come, too ? " she asked. 
 65
 
 " Purely a matter of principle, I assure you," 
 I answered, laughing; "I do not like to set a 
 bad precedent. I know that some of your elders 
 it makes no difference who couldn't wisely 
 follow you in such pleasures; I don't wish to 
 set them the bad example." 
 
 " Which is equivalent to saying that I set the 
 community a bad example." 
 
 As she spoke, she looked up into my face. 
 Her eyes were deep and tender, and her lips 
 were at the same time firm and mobile. The 
 brown hood which she wore was a frame, in 
 rich harmony, about her face. She seemed to 
 come from another world. 
 
 "Ah, my dear Miss Appleton, you have 
 heard of angels descending and ascending be- 
 tween heaven and earth. Would it be wise for 
 me to follow one of them ? Even if I could 
 follow, would it be wise for me to set the pre- 
 cedent for my friends ? Yet, even if I did, could 
 the angels be blamed for the bad precedent?" 
 
 " Oh, what a pretty analogy ! I am glad you 
 did n't follow me, for then I should have missed 
 all this." 
 
 66
 
 The wind blew afresh, tipped back her hood 
 a couple of inches, and let astray a few locks of 
 brown hair about her temples. She was smil- 
 ing in pleasure at my compliment. I forgot all 
 about angels, she was so much better than 
 angels. A stray lock or two of hair and a touch 
 of vanity are so gloriously human ! 
 
 " Since you are so fond of Nature, I suppose 
 you are not a city girl." 
 
 " Yes, and no. I was born in a large city, 
 and I have lived there much of my time ; but 
 I have lived in small places so much that I have 
 been able to get out into the country like this 
 pretty often. Are you, too, fond of wandering 
 about in the cold?" 
 
 "It 's my great delight in winter ; in summer 
 I do the next best thing, wander about in the 
 heat." 
 
 " How I wish I could go about as men can ! 
 It makes me angry to see them wasting their 
 privileges. Look at the men at the fashionable 
 summer resorts. Think of the powers of an 
 able-bodied man, to paddle, row, sail, ride, 
 tramp, climb mountains, explore the wilderness, 
 67
 
 everything that is inspiring in the way of sport, 
 and then see him spotless in stiff linen and care- 
 fully brushed clothes, with button-hole bouquet, 
 sitting lazily in a carriage while another man 
 drives him around; then see him at afternoon 
 teas, talking small talk with a lot of girls as silly 
 as he. 
 
 4 Oh, it was pitiful, 
 Near a whole city full * 
 
 of that sort of thing ! " She ended with a little 
 laugh, as if it would not do to seem to mean 
 seriously all she had said. She seemed half in 
 earnest, half in jest. 
 
 " If you talk that way much more, I shall be 
 inclined to call you a pessimist where society is 
 concerned." 
 
 "Oh, no!" 
 
 What a world of individuality there is in mere 
 accent! It was thirty years and more since I 
 had heard those two common monosyllables 
 spoken with quite that accent. It would be a 
 pleasure to hear her talk even without the deli- 
 cious quality of her tones, and even though she 
 had nothing new to say; her accent double- 
 68
 
 freighted her words. It told of rare readiness of 
 sympathy. One could not hear her and doubt 
 that she was sincere, or even wonder whether 
 her mind were wandering. Her every syllable 
 had individuality; it was a living messenger 
 direct from her mind and heart to another's. 
 One was tempted to rest, as it were, on one's 
 oars. It seemed almost needless when with 
 her to try to be entertaining, or even to be clear ; 
 one felt not only as if she knew what one wished 
 to say, but as if she were as much interested as 
 one's self. 
 
 "I think winter is long enough for society, 
 that is all," she said. "Perhaps other people 
 can see what Nature has to show, and can hear 
 what she has to say when many are about, but 
 I can't; two or three are enough to make the 
 enjoyment best, and they must be just the right 
 ones. I want always to get the vision so clear 
 that it will stay by me. I want it so that I can 
 feel it all over again when I see it on canvas or 
 in print. When we only half see Nature, we 
 lose, not only while we are looking, but also for 
 all moments of possible appreciation at second 
 69
 
 hand, either in memory or in pictures. In the 
 city, during some of the winter, I live over 
 again, in the art galleries, the days in the coun- 
 try. One can't dream over a beautiful picture 
 unless one has made Nature one's own ; and I 
 can't do that within sight of many people and 
 equipages, or within sound of many voices." 
 
 "You are clearly one of Nature's children. 
 I saw that this morning before you saw me." 
 
 "Why, what was I doing?" 
 
 " Only throwing snow at the trees and swing- 
 ing yourself around them in a very natural way, 
 and letting the wind blow through your hair as 
 if you and it were old playmates." 
 
 " The wind and I are old playmates, on water 
 as well as on land. 
 
 "Ah, there you are ! " she sang out suddenly. 
 
 We were approaching the gate of one of the 
 outlying houses of the village. Miss Campbell 
 was coming down the walk. 
 
 " Miss Campbell started out with me," she 
 explained; "but she had an errand here, and 
 went in to wait until I came back." 
 
 "Yes; and can you guess, Mr. Robertson, 
 70
 
 what the errand was?" asked Miss Campbell, 
 as she joined us, and we all started toward the 
 village. 
 
 " Indeed, no ! It is more than I can do to 
 guess what a woman has in mind when I am 
 looking at her. What shall I say when I had n't 
 even seen her for a week ? " 
 
 "I thought you so good a judge of char- 
 acter that, when the circumstances were given, 
 you could predict the actions of people you 
 know." 
 
 " I am at a loss to understand any one's desert- 
 ing Miss Appleton, or," I added, in clumsy 
 haste, " Miss Appleton's deserting you." 
 
 "I shall be jealous if you go on talking that 
 way. You wondered that any one could desert 
 Miss Appleton, and that so kind a girl as she 
 should desert me. You are as bad as your 
 nephew. You like to pay compliments that 
 cut the wrong way." 
 
 She looked up in a playful way that I had 
 become accustomed to, rather liked, in fact ; but 
 this time it was not altogether pleasing, she 
 had come too near the truth. 
 
 71
 
 "You remind me sometimes," she continued, 
 "of a teacher we once had at school. His name 
 was Benjamin Fish, 'Beneficial' we called 
 him. He was a thoroughly kind man at heart, 
 but he was very sensitive. He felt personally 
 slighted when we neglected our work. I sup- 
 pose that is what made him so merciless, under 
 the guise of civility, to the scholars who were 
 careless. You must n't take too much of this 
 as like yourself. One of the boys put together, 
 in a perfunctory way, a number of chemical 
 substances ready for an experiment. He did n't 
 , want to perform the experiment just then, so he 
 put the retort aside, and then went to 'Beneficial ' 
 and asked him what to mark it. 
 
 '"How much hydrochloric acid did you say 
 you put in ? ' asked Mr. Fish. 
 
 "'About a teaspoonful.' 
 
 "With even more dignity than usual, and in 
 even deeper tones, Mr. Fish answered, without 
 comment, 'Mark it "slops."' The boy never 
 forgave him. Another boy once asked him how 
 long he should hold a certain crazy concoction 
 over the Bunsen burner to boil, and was told, 
 72
 
 very soberly, to 'boil it a week.' You aren't 
 quite so bad as that; but there are often two 
 sides to your speeches, as when you talk of Miss 
 Appleton's deserting me." 
 
 " But you see it was n't a question of deser- 
 tion at all," said Miss Appleton ; " it was merely 
 divided duty, and we both fought our own 
 battles." 
 
 "And our weapons differed," added Miss 
 Campbell. "We started out to fight the cold 
 together. Ruth spurred me on by graphic de- 
 scriptions of the fun of a fight with a cold, blowy 
 morning on the river-bank. When we got here, 
 I discovered that I had n't any weapons to fight 
 with, and so I had to go into that house after 
 some. Ruth must have had hers hidden some- 
 where, or else she has some strange way of 
 fighting." 
 
 " But you did n't come back with your weap- 
 ons, after all," laughed Miss Appleton. 
 
 "No. You see I found my chief weapon 
 hardly portable, and it might burn my fingers. 
 Besides, it smoked. I don't like things that 
 smoke." 
 
 73
 
 "Then you really deserted, I am afraid," I 
 suggested. 
 
 "Oh, no! I merely stayed behind the 
 breastworks, and used heavy artillery. Ruth 
 was the light-armed infantry. I think she is 
 rather grateful, too, that you came up as a 
 reinforcement." 
 
 " Miss Appleton did not seem at all in need 
 of reinforcement when I came up. I saw her 
 before she saw me, and I had no notion that she 
 had an enemy within range. She was contem- 
 plating the field with much apparent enjoyment 
 and ease." 
 
 "Well," Miss Campbell responded, with a 
 mock injured look, "the enemy wasn't after 
 her, they were after me; she could afford to 
 wander about light-armed. It needed a whole 
 battery to protect me, for I was the real point 
 of attack. Somehow I always need a lot of 
 protection from this particular enemy. The 
 weapons I like best are a good high-backed 
 sleigh, plenty of robes, a very, very speedy 
 horse, a young man who knows just how to hold 
 the reins, and that 's all he will need to do to 
 74
 
 them if he knows how to drive, and a piping 
 hot supper at the other end of the road. I don't 
 like to walk. Feet were made not to travel on, 
 but to to just to vibrate on. Isn't that 
 what a woman's for, to vibrate? I mean 
 is n't that what people expect of her ? " She 
 paused a moment. " She 's to scintillate, and 
 please everybody by being everything in general 
 and nothing in particular, and never to take any 
 initiative, but only to vibrate when her chords, 
 and all that sort of thing, are touched." 
 
 " I suppose if that 's all woman does, man 
 does all the rest," suggested Miss Appleton. 
 
 " Oh, yes. He 's the one that makes the 
 ' wheels go round.' We 're the ones who stand 
 by and cry to 'shee wheels go wound.' If we 
 can't see them, even at the risk of spoiling them, 
 we cry. Did you ever think of it before ? We 
 make man's life miserable unless we are happy. 
 To keep us happy, he makes the wheels go 
 round ; but then we meddle, and spoil it all. 
 Is it strange that the world is a strange place ? " 
 
 " After all, is n't it the men themselves who 
 see the wheels go round ? " I asked. 
 75
 
 " Yes, perhaps it is, at least, some kinds 
 of wheels. They won't let us see them go 
 round. We have to content ourselves with 
 hearing about them." 
 
 " In other words, you only hear the watch 
 tick." 
 
 " Perhaps that 's why women are so much 
 afraid of getting old," said Miss Appleton. 
 " They know only the monotonous tick, and 
 don't see any of the motion that makes it. They 
 get to think of time as a thing which takes 
 away, but never gives." 
 
 " My small brother," suggested Miss Camp- 
 bell, doubtfully, " would correct you there, and 
 say that, though Time never gives, he 'gives 
 away,' that he 's a horrible fellow for giv- 
 ing away.' He would just delight to get a 
 chance to say so to some of the young old maids 
 in town." 
 
 " What is an old maid ? " I asked. 
 
 "An old maid," answered Miss Campbell, 
 readily, " is one who is old enough to know 
 better." 
 
 "Is that why the limit of age varies so much?" 
 76
 
 " Certainly. Some don't know enough to 
 marry until they are thirty, and yet we don't 
 call them old maids ; others are old maids at 
 twenty-five. They know better ; but they are 
 too stupid, or too lazy, or something, to catch 
 the good fish in the sea.' " 
 
 " You forget that they need bait," suggested 
 Miss Appleton, "just as you forgot your own 
 weapons this morning." 
 
 " Oh, no ! Why, flies are better than live 
 bait, I 'm told ; and a woman who can't make 
 her own flies, and hooks, too, for that matter, 
 does n't deserve to catch fish. I '11 risk a bright 
 woman, even if she has to make every bit of 
 her own tackle." 
 
 " If that 's the feminine point of view," said 
 I, " it 's time the men were suspicious as well 
 as suspected. The bulk of our literature, and 
 especially of our dramatic literature, puts suspi- 
 cion upon the men. It becomes interesting to 
 hear that women not only angle for men, but 
 angle for them with flies." 
 
 " Why, deception is the great civilizer," de- 
 clared Miss Campbell. " To get rid of our 
 77
 
 delusions is all we live for. So if we did n't 
 have any delusions, life would n't be worth 
 living." 
 
 " What 's the particular delusion you live to 
 get rid of? " asked Miss Appleton. 
 
 " That I 'm not so good as I ought to be." 
 
 "I suppose, then," said I, "that it's not 
 allowable to ask you whether life is worth 
 living." 
 
 " Oh, yes," she laughed, " and I ought to be 
 a good authority, I find it so. I doubt whether 
 I ever accomplish the end, you know. It 's 
 rather hard to persuade one's self that one is as 
 good as one ought to be, as hard as it is to 
 persuade one's self that one is as warm as one 
 ought to be on a day like this. But I 'm going 
 to be as warm as I ought to be in a few moments. 
 Won't you both come in and have some hot 
 chocolate ? " 
 
 We reached her home as she spoke. Miss 
 Appleton accepted the invitation, but I kept on 
 my way. The thought that I had learned some 
 of Miss Appleton's favorite walks was cheer 
 enough for me. 
 
 78
 
 VI. 
 
 HOW dear a town becomes if one is always 
 on the alert to catch sight of a particular 
 face ! Heretofore I had felt like a sojourner in 
 Madawanipee ; it seemed suddenly to have be- 
 come a part of my life. Every morning when 
 I left the house, I scanned the street to see 
 whether Miss Appleton chanced to be in sight. 
 I never passed a cross-street without looking up 
 and down for her. It would be so easy to miss 
 seeing her sometime that I took every precau- 
 tion. I chanced upon her just often enough to 
 keep the hope from dying. 
 
 One morning, as I came down the steps, she 
 was a little way ahead of me. I soon overtook 
 her. 
 
 " Is it legitimate to be so late in starting out 
 for the day ? " she asked, with a smile. " I think 
 I heard a door close just before you appeared." 
 
 " Are n't all things legitimate when their 
 complements are not wanting?" 
 79
 
 " What virtue can make up for a late begin- 
 ning of the day ? " 
 
 " A late ending, to be sure." 
 
 " But one must know why the day ended late 
 before one can justify such an excuse. You see 
 I am not lenient to people whose ways are a 
 little off color." 
 
 "I see. I pity one whose sins should fall 
 under your eye. Would you condone my late 
 appearance if I should prove that I was engaged 
 in a laudable enterprise last night?" 
 
 "What a hard judge you make me out to 
 be ! I must search with double diligence for 
 the beam in my own eye. I hope you will tell 
 me about your laudable enterprise, so as to put 
 me to shame ; for I was n't a bit laudable last 
 night. I treated an estimable young man very 
 unkindly, though I must say that it was done 
 unconsciously." 
 
 " There, now I have my retaliation ; for my 
 laudable enterprise was doing just what you 
 foiled to do. I treated an estimable young man 
 with the utmost kindness. I have a nephew in 
 town. He was in a proper mood for listening 
 80
 
 to a good lecture last night. I gave it to 
 him." 
 
 "Do you call that kindness?" 
 
 " Did n't you ever lecture a young man and 
 call it kindness?" 
 
 "Perhaps, in fun." 
 
 " Oh, no, in earnest ! Of course you have. 
 Something has got hold of this nephew of mine. 
 I could imagine that he had fallen in love, or 
 was getting within sight of the precipice over 
 which to fall, if I did n't think the girl who put 
 him in danger was not here. He seemed to be 
 bewitched a few weeks ago ; but he told me 
 afterward that the girl, a stranger in town, had 
 gone away. I know that he was not so badly 
 smitten that she could disturb his equanimity 
 after she had gone. He talked of her for days, 
 though he had never met her. He doesn't 
 work, nor play, nor do anything else. His 
 work is n't pressing him hard, and so he neglects 
 it. He chiefly dreams. Last night he dropped 
 in to see me about eleven, dreamier than ever, 
 and I tried to wake him up ; but I fear he went 
 off to dreaming again before he got home." 
 ll
 
 "Is dreaming hard to cure?" 
 
 "Easier than the leprosy, only. There is 
 one cure, or rather one physician, for every 
 dreamer; but often that is the very one impos- 
 sible to employ." 
 
 "I hope you succeeded in cheering your 
 nephew up. That is," she added hastily, "I 
 hope you are the physician for him." 
 
 " Oh, I did n't say that he was blue. I sus- 
 pect, on the other hand, that I but confirmed 
 him in his bad habit." 
 
 I noticed that she was a trifle embarrassed 
 when I corrected her and said that he was not 
 blue; and I thought it strange that she should 
 care so much about so slight a matter. 
 
 "I must turn down this street," she said, as 
 we reached the next corner. "I hope but 
 won't you come, too ? Perhaps you have n't 
 been there. I 'm going to the jail to see a man 
 convicted of stealing from a cousin of mine. He 
 seems to like to see me, and I have been there 
 a good many times. It is very interesting ; so 
 many curious types ! And being there for the 
 purpose of seeing a special one, I can look about
 
 and see the others when they are not on exhibi- 
 tion, as it were, to curiosity-seekers. They are 
 very different, then. Many seem to resent being 
 shown as curiosities, and they put on hard, defi- 
 ant faces ; whereas alone they show something 
 of natural feeling. Will you come?" 
 
 "Thank you, gladly." 
 
 We were ushered into a long corridor from 
 which the cells opened. The special subject of 
 Miss Appleton's visit was near the door. He 
 was a rough, sensual-looking fellow, of thirty or 
 thereabouts, with an eye that seemed to have 
 degenerated into viciousness. He chanced to 
 see me first. It seemed almost as if he could 
 not be touched by anything noble or beautiful. 
 Yet when he saw Miss Appleton behind me, 
 his scowl vanished, his eyes sparkled with de- 
 light and gratitude like a child's. Even the 
 sensuality of the face seemed to pale, and some- 
 thing of the buried nobler self shone through 
 the marks of vice. He watched her eagerly, 
 passionately; but the passion had none of the 
 ruffian in it. It was the passion of a child for 
 some adored man or woman.
 
 "Good-morning," she said, with a smile, as 
 she stopped before the door of his cell. " How 
 is Mr. Murphy this morning?" 
 
 " Oh, I 'm fine ! as fine as any one can be 
 without a free look at the sky and the sunshine ; 
 and I hope you are feeling as fine as an angel 
 yourself, Miss Appleton." 
 
 " I 'm always well, you know. I 'm as well 
 as any one can be who isn't an angel," she 
 added, with a gay smile. " You see we all have 
 some limitations. You might feel better if you 
 were free to go about, and I might feel better 
 if I were an angel. I 'm not ready to be an 
 angel yet, for I want to come here and see you 
 a few times more first; and this time I want to 
 introduce you to my friend, Mr. Robertson." 
 
 I ought to have been prepared for this ; but 
 singularly I had been so busy with thoughts 
 about my companion that I had not thought of 
 my own duties. I could not well tell the man 
 that I was pleased to see him, for when at the 
 jail it would be kinder to wish him elsewhere. 
 I could not congratulate him on the beauty or 
 coziness of his surroundings ; I could not even 
 84
 
 congratulate him on having so faithful a friend 
 as Miss Appleton, for that would but emphasize 
 his need of such a friend. What a pity it is 
 that our wits get slow with our limbs ! By rare 
 luck, just as I reached Miss Appleton's side, 
 ready for the introduction, I found a ground of 
 common interest with him. 
 
 "I am glad to see a man," I said, "who has 
 managed to keep Miss Appleton for his friend 
 as long as she tells me you have. I know more 
 than one person who would count it an honor 
 to possess her friendship at all." 
 
 He smiled faintly at first, as if bound by com- 
 mon civility to smile at anything I might say in 
 the way of greeting ; and then his heavy face 
 lighted up slowly as he looked at her. 
 
 "I 've heard some of the ladies who come 
 here say God is everybody's friend, and won't 
 let us drive His friendship away. It ain't be- 
 cause we deserve it ; perhaps it 's because we 
 don't deserve it. That 's the way " here he 
 turned to me " Miss Appleton 's made. It 
 ain't nothin' to my credit that she 's my friend ; 
 it 's only her kindness." 
 85
 
 "I see he doesn't understand," she said. 
 " He does n't see how I get any pleasure out of 
 coming here. He does n't know my hobby, or 
 mania, of wanting other people to read the books 
 I like. He does n't tell you about the books I 
 bring him, and make him read. I begin to think 
 that if I 'm not careful I shall make him hate 
 the very sight of books. Yet he always seems 
 to read what I bring, and he does it as patiently 
 as any one could ask, or, at least, he never 
 shows anything but patience when I 'm about." 
 
 I saw in his face the light which indicates that 
 one is laboring to catch and bring out some 
 elusive thought. I turned away for a moment, 
 as if interested in something at the end of the 
 corridor, and waited rather curiously. It was 
 not long in coming. He spoke slowly, looking 
 down. 
 
 " I never was given to showing impatience 
 because my mother brought me anything extra 
 good for a present ; and since I was a child no 
 one ever did anything for me until now." 
 
 He seemed doubtful of the issue of this ex- 
 periment. Several moments passed before he 
 86
 
 looked up. He found Miss Appleton looking 
 into his face with those wonderful eyes of hers, 
 and that wonderful, sympathetic smile, seem- 
 ing to know all that was noble in him, rejoicing 
 in it, and believing that it would prevail. He 
 quickly brightened, like a child who finds praise 
 where it feared blame. 
 
 I left them talking, and passed on through 
 the corridor to see whether the other cells 
 were occupied. I noticed a hard-looking man, 
 perhaps beyond middle age, leaning with his 
 face pressed closely against the bars and gazing 
 toward Miss Appleton. I returned down the 
 corridor ; but on passing up a second time, I 
 found that the man had not moved even his 
 eyes. At the upper end I paused to get a view 
 of him without his seeing me. He seemed 
 straining his ears as well as his eyes. When I 
 reached his cell on the return, I stopped. 
 
 "Do you happen to know the man with 
 whom my friend is talking ? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, sir, very well." 
 
 " Is there anything particular about him, or 
 is he like " I was going to say " the rest of 
 87
 
 you," but checked myself in time to turn it into 
 " other people ? " 
 
 " He ain't like other people, or he would n't 
 be here," was the simple reply. " But he ain't 
 like the other men here, leastwise he ain't 
 now ; he was as bad as any of 'em when he first 
 come." 
 
 " What has happened to him ? " 
 
 " I don' know what you call it, but it 's that 
 young lady what done it." 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " Oh, jus' comin' to see him, an' talkin* to 
 him like he was a man an' not another sort o* 
 critter. An' then she brings him books, not 
 the kin' they call Sunday-school books, but books 
 about real people an' such like. It seems to kind 
 o' wake up his insides, makes him think, yer 
 know, an' want to do better when he gets out. 
 She don't go preachin' to him, but jus' talks with 
 him the same as she would any feller." 
 
 " You think he likes to have her come and 
 bring books, then, do you ? " 
 
 " Likes it ! It takes the sap all out o' him 
 if she don't come jus' when he expec's her. 
 88
 
 "Say," he continued confidentially, after a 
 moment's pause, " s'pose she 'd let me have one 
 o' them books she let him have last week ? He 
 tol' me about it. He said it kind o' opened his 
 eyes. If it 's goin' to open a feller's eyes to the 
 sort o' thing she sees, I 'd kind o' like to have 
 mine opened for a while, to see what it 's like." 
 
 I gladly carried the message ; and even more 
 gladly, if possible, she answered it in person. It 
 was hard for the man to repress sufficiently his 
 delight at having her come to speak to him. I 
 lingered a moment after she had returned to her 
 special ward, and could see the new light in his 
 face, the new energy even in his posture. 
 
 "I 've watched her every time she 's been 
 here when we wasn't workin' in the work- 
 shop," he exclaimed enthusiastically; "an' I 
 count up, just as the other feller does, an' guess 
 when she 's goin' to come again. I never seen 
 a lady like her before. Lots o' women come 
 here, an' a good many of 'em talk to us ; but 
 they ain't like her. She don't talk to that feller 
 about his sins, an' ask him to be better. She 
 jus' talks to him as she 'd talk to any one con- 
 89
 
 fined in the house, an' tries to amuse him an* 
 cheer him up. She don't have to talk about his 
 sins, or ask him to be better. Her beautiful face 
 an* her smile an' her voice, quiet but strong, like 
 the brooks I used to know when I was a kid, 
 do all that. She seems to believe in a feller, an* 
 make him want to show her he can do what she 
 wants him to." 
 
 I walked home with Miss Appleton. 
 
 "I don't suppose it would do any good for 
 me to tell you what I think of your work there 
 this morning," I said. 
 
 " Yes, it would do good, whatever you say. 
 You can help me to find the right thing to do." 
 
 " No, I can't do that. Even if it was ever 
 possible, I am too late now." 
 
 She looked up with an expression half of fear, 
 half of pleasure, questioningly, until I continued : 
 
 "We do not search for things which were 
 never lost, certainly not for things which we 
 have always had." 
 
 " If you are going to talk that way, you can't 
 help me." 
 
 90
 
 "So I feared. You are beyond help. Even 
 praise will not help you. You are too inde- 
 pendent, too courageous, to find help in anything 
 of the kind." 
 
 " Please do not talk like that. Do you forget 
 that I am a woman ? At least," she continued, 
 slowly, as if a new thought had interrupted her, 
 " I hope I am not so hard, so self-confident, so 
 emancipated," she smiled a little here, 
 " as to be beyond the help of sympathy." 
 
 " Forgive me ! The trouble is that my sym- 
 pathy is so great. I saw so much of the good 
 you have done those two men that I did not 
 stop to think that you are only a woman still." 
 
 Her quick look of gratitude forgave me.
 
 VII. 
 
 AS the winter passed on into spring, my 
 heart seemed to grow young again, 
 young again, did I say ? No, not that ! I can- 
 not admit that it ever grew old. But there is 
 a change in the heart. We need not abandon 
 hope of pleasure, unless, indeed, our lives 
 have been so squandered that we know chiefly 
 the pleasures of the body, we need not aban- 
 don the hope of rendering service ; but one thing 
 is lost forever, the hope of winning some 
 maiden's love. In that respect our lives have 
 been lived, and we are as dead. How selfish 
 we are ! Because the hope of winning love has 
 gone from us, we forget the power of loving; 
 we close our hearts against the giving of that 
 which, given, leaves us richer. Under the touch 
 of this young girl's life I found my heart open- 
 ing. I could not hope to touch her heart even 
 so lightly as to quicken its beating ; yet that was 
 92
 
 no reason why my own should not be quickened, 
 strengthened, opened to the inspiration of noble 
 womanhood. 
 
 Perhaps it was the old love with which I 
 had lived alone so many years breaking from its 
 bounds under her magic touch. My Agnes 
 seemed come back to earth again, ignorant of 
 me. I could no more help worshipping her 
 now than when my blood was youthful. Years 
 ago, after she had been lost to me, I had not the 
 right even to try to serve her ; now, in this new 
 love, the right of service, at least, could not be 
 denied me. 
 
 Doubtless I was rather childish about it, but 
 I watched eagerly for any little want of hers 
 which I could supply. It chanced that I over- 
 heard her say that she loved the little plant called 
 the gold-thread, and longed for a glimpse of it. 
 I had longed all spring for a note of the white- 
 throated sparrow ; and I knew that if she 
 longed for the flower as I longed for the bird, 
 it would be worth my while to make an excur- 
 sion in quest of one. I had found the plant 
 growing, a year or two before, in the woods 
 93
 
 near White Pond ; and thither I betook myself 
 at the first opportunity. The day was one of 
 the perfect ones of spring, when Nature is full 
 of her annual task, but working so peacefully 
 that one hardly thinks of change. It was a 
 delight merely to live. I was doubly repaid 
 for my pains ; for when I emerged upon the 
 Prescott Road, I carried a large bunch of the 
 plants. 
 
 Along the western side of the rad the woods 
 had been cut for fuel, and each year's cutting 
 could be traced by the varying heights of the 
 new growth. The woods were sprinkled with 
 pine, and the red needles strewed the sloping 
 ground. The first touch of spring had flushed 
 the tops of the bare trees. As one looked from 
 the road, a terraced bank of crimson-pink the 
 ground, the tops of bushes, of saplings, and of 
 trees rose from one's feet to the sky. The 
 sun had set ; and the east was illumined with 
 the reflection, more peaceful even than the ori- 
 ginal, of the western pinks. It seemed to typify 
 the love of my old age, the reflection of the love 
 of my youth. Below the road the river had 
 94
 
 spread out to a pond, and from overhead it had 
 caught the sunset colors, reflecting them once 
 more. I was in the midst of one of Nature's 
 color displays, the red of the ground and the 
 trees, the deep blue of the upper sky, the pink 
 of the east, the doubly delicate pink of the crys- 
 tal lake. The black shadows under the western 
 shore gave the needed touch of intensity. 
 
 Everything was in perfect peace, so beau- 
 tiful as to be almost sad. When I reached the 
 village, it was so dark that people could not be 
 recognized except face to face. I intended to 
 carry the flowers to Ruth in the evening ; but 
 in the hope that I might see some trace of her 
 I slackened my pace before I reached the house 
 where she was staying. From the yard I heard 
 children's voices, and then a voice from the 
 piazza. 
 
 " No-o," came the answer, in a piping little 
 voice, out of the darkness, " I want to hear 
 Wuth thing thum more." 
 
 Another voice, boyish, but as eager, took up 
 the plea : " Miss Appleton is going to sing us 
 the birdie song, and then we '11 come in." 
 95
 
 *' Yes, Annie, we shall be in very soon. I 
 promised them one little song. It 's not at all 
 cold out here." 
 
 How I loved the tones of that voice ! 
 
 I saw approaching slowly up the garden path 
 a tall figure in a light gown, and two small fig- 
 ures, one pudgy, one slender. When I saw 
 that they would not come very near me, I 
 stopped to hear the song. 
 
 It was Soederberg's " A Birdling sang on the 
 Linden-Bough." At the words, "In spring 
 he '11 surely be returning," the voice, though so 
 quiet that it scarcely could have been heard from 
 the middle of the street, was rich as with cer- 
 tainty and joy in the words. 
 
 My peace was gone. It was very foolish, 
 but a dart of jealousy went through me. I knew 
 that she could never love me, could never think 
 of me with anything more than kindness, or 
 perhaps admiration, should I say veneration ? 
 Yet she was my all ! I tried not to be selfish ; 
 and I told myself that if I knew the man who 
 was to come, and knew him worthy of her, I 
 should rejoice with her. But if he should be a 
 96
 
 mere stripling, unformed and untried ! Perhaps 
 I could even stand the stripling, and have faith 
 in him because she had faith in him ; but if he 
 were tried and found wanting in the noblest 
 manhood ! That would go hard with me. If 
 she had been blinded ; if her eyes had never been 
 opened to know a man when she saw one ; if 
 she had given her love to a man whose life had 
 not been lived worthily of her, my last dream 
 of happiness was gone. 
 
 I wandered slowly home. Harry was at my 
 desk, reading the morning's city papers. On 
 the table stood a glass of water with a bunch of 
 gold-thread. I stopped on the threshold, and 
 we looked at each other. 
 
 " I wonder," laughed Harry, " whether you 
 can tell me where I can find some growing 
 gold-thread ? " 
 
 " You don't seem to need the information. 
 Whose are these ? " 
 
 "I picked them." 
 
 " I did n't know that you ever brought home 
 flowers." 
 
 " I don't commonly. I picked these for 
 some one else." 
 
 97
 
 My curiosity was excited. Ruth was the 
 first person whom I had ever heard express a 
 fondness for the flower ; and it seemed strange 
 that Harry should have brought them at just 
 this time unless they were for her. I remem- 
 bered, too, that he had been present when she 
 had spoken of them. 
 
 " Who is the favored person ? " I asked. 
 
 "Ruth Appleton." 
 
 I am afraid that I winced. Just why, it 
 would be hard to say. Indeed, I have pre- 
 ferred not to ask myself just why. I suppose 
 my fancy jumped clear of all reasonableness, and 
 ran its own wanton way. Childish I suppose 
 it was for me to be jealous when I heard her 
 sing ; but after once giving way, it was not 
 strange that I looked with great suspicion upon 
 Harry. I knew him unworthy of her, and yet 
 I knew him better worthy of her than many a 
 more promising youth. 
 
 " I suppose it is safe to guess," said Harry, 
 "that your flowers are for Ruth, too." 
 
 " They are intended for Miss Appleton. " 
 I spoke in a corrective tone. 
 98
 
 "That's what I said." 
 
 " I understood you to say ' Ruth.' " 
 
 " Yes ; Ruth Appleton." 
 
 " I call her Miss Appleton when I speak of 
 her." 
 
 There was little use in trying to correct 
 Harry, and make him observe the delicacies of 
 either speech or demeanor. He was a boy still, 
 and a boy he will always remain. I was free 
 to correct and scold him as often as I saw occa- 
 sion, but my progress was not always encourag- 
 ing. His mother had been my only sister ; and 
 at her death, Harry became my charge. Our 
 relations were almost as close as those of father 
 and son ; but I had striven rather to give them 
 the freedom and companionship, so far as the 
 difference of age would allow, of brothers. 
 
 " If her name is Ruth, I might as well call 
 her so," he said. 
 
 " Do you call her so before her face ? " 
 
 "I haven't yet." 
 
 " You contemplate it ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, thrust his hands 
 deep into his pockets, and looked at the ceiling. 
 99
 
 "I should n't be surprised," he said. 
 
 He spoke as a man might speak who contem- 
 plated astonishing his friends by buying a palatial 
 yacht or a beautiful estate. It was well that I 
 had not seated myself. I laid down my hat, and 
 began to walk up and down the room. Of the 
 varied emotions which stirred me, indignation 
 was uppermost. If Ruth had promised to marry 
 him, his tone betrayed his unworthiness ; if she 
 had not, it was nothing less than insolent. 
 
 He did not notice my agitation. I was glad 
 that he felt talkative and was likely to explain 
 himself before I needed to speak. 
 
 " I suppose you '11 give me your flowers to 
 add to mine, since it 's all in the family," he 
 laughed. " One big bunch makes a better show- 
 ing than two little ones. We '11 call it a joint 
 tribute to her beauty. 
 
 " She is a beauty, is n't she ? " he went on. 
 " The different elements seem to be put together 
 just right in her to make the finest effect. At one 
 time or another in my life, I have thought half 
 a dozen girls just about right. Kitty Davener 
 was a daisy, but she is n't so young-looking now. 
 100
 
 I used to think nothing could be any finer. She 
 used to be such a cute little thing dimpling 
 cheeks, babyish mouth, questioning eyes (as if 
 she were afraid you were trying to 'bluff' her), 
 snub nose that a fellow wanted to cuddle her 
 right inside his overcoat, and carry her home to 
 help him fill his easy-chair. 
 
 " Then, as I speak, I can see the rhythm 
 of Laura Campbell's lithe body, so luxuriously 
 moulded. And then think of that wonderful 
 complexion of hers, so smooth, so fair, so 
 soft ! It makes a fellow want to get up against 
 her cheek, just to get the sensation of mere 
 lusciousness. 
 
 " But Ruth Appleton is n't like the others," 
 he continued ; " she has n't quite the same effect 
 on me. She 's doubtless quite as fine, and when 
 I stop to think of it, I realize it ; but it is gen- 
 erally only unconsciously that one has the sense 
 of how very fine an animal she is, with her tall, 
 well-knit figure, clear, vigorous complexion, and 
 vigorous carriage. She 's so fine an all-around 
 girl, with her clear head and plucky spirit, that 
 the other girls are n't in the same game with her.
 
 She suits me to a T. It would n't be half 
 bad if she had the same sort of feeling toward 
 me." 
 
 "Then you haven't told her yet all the 
 admiration she calls out ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " But if you are in love with her," I asked, 
 " what about Laura Campbell and the love you 
 thought you had for her before you saw Miss 
 Appleton ? " 
 
 " Nothing new." 
 
 " What do you mean by that ? " 
 
 " Our relations have n't changed." 
 
 *' Then what do you call them ? " I asked, in 
 astonishment. 
 
 "Just now they come without calling ; they 
 are hanging fire, I guess." 
 
 " Well, what will they ever amount to ? " 
 
 " I don't know. Miss Appleton knows more 
 about it than I. If I can get her for myself, why, 
 naturally, I shall lose Laura ; if I lose Ruth, I 
 hope to get Laura." 
 
 In spite of my fear lest I should alienate his 
 confidence, I found it hard to keep my temper.
 
 " Do you mean that you love both girls at 
 once ? " 
 
 " Not exactly that ; but I have stopped lov- 
 ing Laura for a while, as it were, to see whether 
 I can win Ruth." 
 
 " Be good enough to call her Miss Appleton 
 until she grants you permission to speak of her as 
 Ruth, please. What do you suppose she would 
 think of such a proceeding, if she knew ? " 
 
 " She ought to feel highly complimented that 
 I should keep my affection for Laura waiting on 
 herself." 
 
 " Pardon my bluntness, but you are very 
 much mistaken ; she would scorn you, if she 
 knew it. Do you think she wants such a love 
 as you could give her ? " 
 
 "I would give her all I have. No one else 
 would have any of it." 
 
 " Doubtless. Perhaps I ought to have asked 
 what kind of love you could give her. I should 
 like to hear her express an opinion of the love of 
 a man who, because he could n't win the girl he 
 would like to marry, would marry a girl because 
 he could win her. You say that if you can't 
 103
 
 win your first choice, you will not hesitate to 
 ask in marriage a girl whom you call in your 
 heart your second choice. I hope the second 
 choice would be satisfied with the love she got. 
 I call that a bargain, not marriage." 
 
 " But I told you Miss Appleton was my first 
 choice. I love her well enough to satisfy her, 
 or any woman. I adore her. She just fits my 
 notion of what a woman ought to be. I love 
 just such blue eyes and brown hair and innocent 
 nose and smiling lips and tall figure and musical 
 voice and gracious temper." 
 
 " Ah, do you ? If I were her lover, I should 
 love blue eyes because hers are blue ; I should 
 love brown hair because hers is brown ; I 
 should love such lips and figure and voice because 
 hers are such. See the difference ? " 
 " Y-yes what little there is. " 
 " There 's all the difference in the world." 
 " At any rate, Miss Appleton is my first 
 choice, and that 's what you say she cares about ; 
 so I am all right on that score." 
 
 " It is n't enough that she shall be first choice. 
 Quality of love is just as important. She will 
 104
 
 never marry a man who could marry a woman 
 second in his heart." 
 
 He sat in silence for a time. 
 
 " I 'm glad that I don't see things as you do," 
 he said, at last. " Still," he continued, a moment 
 later, " if your point of view is the correct one, 
 I wish I could see from it." 
 
 " I fear that we shall never see from the same 
 points of view. I have tried to show you mine. 
 Let 's change the subject." 
 
 It was perhaps fortunate for my future peace 
 of mind that after my conversation with Harry 
 no peculiar opportunities either for aiding or 
 hampering him in his suit chanced to fall in my 
 way. In spite of my fondness for him, I could 
 hardly have looked on quietly while a man who 
 spoke as he spoke sought to make Ruth his wife. 
 
 I did not give him my flowers. When he 
 had gone, I sent for a messenger. I wrote a few 
 words on my card, and attached it to the bunch ; 
 but before the messenger had closed the door, I 
 called him back, and removed the card. 
 
 105
 
 VIII. 
 
 I WAS not patriotic on Memorial Day. I 
 somehow dislike a crowd, because it is a 
 crowd. When I started out for my daily exer- 
 cise, I took a direction away from the cemetery. 
 I wandered across fields and through groves, 
 regardless of the right of property in land. Ruth 
 was in my thoughts, as usual. We were on the 
 best of terms ; for not a week passed without a 
 forenoon or afternoon of walking or riding or 
 canoeing together. She found no other girls 
 who wanted so much exercise ; I wanted no 
 other companion : so we went together, and 
 quiet, unconventional Madawanipee did n't care. 
 They say that we cannot have our cake and eat 
 it too ; yet I seemed to do so. I had the mem- 
 ory of Highbank days with Agnes, and yet with 
 Ruth I was living them all over again. All, did 
 I say ? No, not quite all ; I am an old man now. 
 I passed over a knoll, and came suddenly upon 
 106
 
 a man's figure stretched prostrate on the grass, 
 face downward. The arms were folded under 
 the forehead. I did not wish to intrude if the 
 position was voluntary, and yet I thought it wise 
 to investigate. I stopped to watch for a mo- 
 ment. Just as I was about to go forward, the 
 man turned over. I recognized him as a fellow- 
 boarder, who had within the last three months 
 come to Madawanipee from a hamlet forty miles 
 away. He had but recently cast his first vote. 
 
 " Your position startled me," said I, when he 
 recognized me. " I did n't know but that I had 
 found a case for the coroner. Which would you 
 rather that it would be, a murder or a suicide ? " 
 
 As I spoke, I drew nearer, and saw that his 
 face was drawn hard, as if almost in despair. 
 
 " I don't know as it would make much differ- 
 ence," he answered. 
 
 He sat up, and tried to throw off his mood ; 
 but my chance greeting had made it harder than 
 ever. 
 
 " You really look as if you would n't mind 
 either very much. What is the matter ? Are 
 you sick ? " 
 
 107
 
 " Oh, no, not at all." There was no life in 
 his voice. 
 
 I had taken a fancy to him as soon as I saw him 
 at the house. I wanted him to succeed in life, but 
 his mood warranted the expectation of anything 
 but success. I sat down on a rock near him, 
 even at the risk of intruding ; I meant at least 
 to turn the current of his thoughts. 
 
 " A man has no right to look as you do 
 unless something is the matter with him," said 
 I, trying to smile. " A dozen such people in a 
 community would hide the sun. You owe it 
 to the world to cheer up." 
 
 He looked up at me almost fiercely, with the 
 old, old question on his lips. 
 
 " How much do I owe the world ? It 's your 
 devilish town here that has made me as I am. 
 Do I owe the town a bright face in return ? I 
 came here with some faith in God and man, 
 and woman, too. They have pretty nearly 
 taken it all away. Nobody cares for the good 
 in him or in other people. Everybody lives on 
 the brutish side of himself here ; and, what 
 makes me hate myself, I begin to wonder 
 108 

 
 whether it was n't so at home, only I did n't 
 see it because I was so green." 
 
 " I know how you feel. I 've been in the 
 same place myself. You 're morbid. You have 
 been looking at one side of life too long, and 
 the wrong side. You have shut yourself up in 
 your shell, and have thought that you could see 
 into other people's shells ; but you must remem- 
 ber that you can't, until you have opened your 
 own so as to see out better. Take my word 
 for it, for awhile, that your old faith in the 
 good is all right, not only as a faith, but as a 
 working principle. You will see it for yourself, 
 soon." 
 
 I succeeded in cheering him a bit ; but, best 
 of all, I got a promise from him to go up stream 
 with me on his part holiday, Saturday. I appre- 
 ciated his desperate state. There is, perhaps, 
 none harder in life, alone, unloving, and un- 
 loved; the evil thrusting themselves in one's 
 face, the good holding back their skirts -because 
 one has not been " properly presented." 
 
 As soon as we parted, I made what I thought 
 a bold move. I went straight to Ruth. When 
 109 

 
 I arrived, she was telling Harry, who was stand- 
 ing hat in hand, that she would be delighted to 
 join a sailing party for Saturday afternoon. My 
 hopes fell. I saw that I had saddled my young 
 friend Cobb with myself for a companion on 
 Saturday, and had lost the one help which I had 
 meant to carry him. As soon as Harry left, I 
 told her my errand, but said that I withdrew 
 from the field. 
 
 When I had left the house, Miss Campbell 
 came into my mind as a possible substitute. She 
 was bright enough to entertain Cobb, but she 
 had little of the deep sympathy which I wished 
 to put in his way. At all events, she would 
 make my little party more cheerful ; and cheer 
 I must have. I found her at home, and appar- 
 ently glad to go. 
 
 The next afternoon, however, a note came 
 from Ruth asking whether my invitation for 
 Saturday still held good. I hurried to her in 
 joyful surprise. 
 
 " Yes," she said; "I am regretting what I 
 did yesterday. I may as well be frank with you. 
 I was pleased that Mr. Templeman should ask
 
 me to go with him ; besides, I wanted to be 
 with the party. I knew I ought not to go wjth 
 him, it is n't necessary to say why, but the 
 temptation was too great. He seemed to care 
 so much that my vanity was tickled, and I con- 
 sented against my better judgment. It 's per- 
 haps just as wrong to decline to go now as it 
 was to accept in the beginning. There is bound 
 to be wrong somewhere, for it 's already done. 
 I would rather go with you. I may do harm 
 by going to the sailing party on the river; but 
 I can't do much harm by going up the stream 
 with you and the young friend you want me to 
 meet. So I 've asked Mr. Templeman to ex- 
 cuse me, and I 'm going with you, if you '11 
 take me." 
 
 " Indeed I shall. I was very much disap- 
 pointed yesterday when I thought I could n't 
 have you. Miss Campbell is going too, and we 
 shall try to have a jolly little party." 
 
 "I am glad Miss Campbell is going; she is 
 always so wide awake." 
 
 I told her nothing about young Cobb, except 
 that he was from the country, a long way off,
 
 was very lonesome, and was, I suspected, 
 very bashful. We planned to take a luncheon 
 up the stream with us, and stay until early even- 
 ing, so as to get the best lights and shadows on 
 the trees. 
 
 I went to Miss Campbell at once to tell her 
 of the addition to the party. I innocently ex- 
 pected her to be as glad as I. 
 
 " Ruth Appleton will be just the girl for that 
 sort of excursion," she commented. " If the 
 young man is lonesome among strangers here, 
 as you say, she will help greatly to cheer him 
 up. She 's such a homelike, domestic body." 
 She had been looking into my face when she 
 first spoke. As she continued, she looked down, 
 and toyed with a card on the table. " Just to 
 look at her makes one feel comfortable. She 's 
 almost grandmotherly, sometimes. Everyone 
 falls in love with grandmothers, you know. 
 Perhaps that 's why every one falls in love with 
 her. Every one does, from the driver of the 
 town offal-wagon to the Baptist minister. A girl 
 who does n't seem grandmotherly does n't count 
 at all since she came."
 
 There was a touch almost of bitterness in her 
 tones ; yet she was smiling. 
 
 "It's a new style, perhaps," she added. 
 " New styles are generally taking at first." 
 
 " Of course, then, you are glad to have so 
 many chances for studying the new style ; .1 have 
 seen you with Miss Appleton several times." 
 
 " Yes, I was with her a good deal when she 
 first came ; but you see I caught the style at last, 
 and don't need to study it any more." 
 
 " And now you are one of those who help 
 to spread it ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ! It is n't catching like that. No- 
 body ever caught it from me. Besides, it 's not at 
 all dangerous ; most of us get over it very easily." 
 
 I tried in vain to get at the meaning of this 
 remark. It seemed to reflect a little unpleasantly 
 upon Ruth, unless, indeed, Miss Campbell 
 had over-reached herself in trying to say some- 
 thing bright. Before I had made up my mind 
 how to interpret it, she spoke again : 
 
 "Now that Miss Appleton has consented to 
 go, you don't need me. She can grandmother 
 your friend, whereas I could n't even cousin 
 113
 
 him. You would n't miss me much if I did n't 
 go, after all, would you ? " 
 
 " Why, I have been counting on you, of 
 course." 
 
 " Oh, that of course ' tells it all. You know 
 what we always mean when we say of course ' 
 about ourselves. It 's only a little compromise 
 with our consciences for telling a little less than 
 the truth, or is it sometimes a little more ? 
 You see you don't care much about my going 
 now that you have Miss Appleton. I have an 
 invitation to go to Richmond for a few days, 
 starting to-morrow. If I am to go with you, I 
 must give up Richmond." 
 
 " Indeed, I shall be sorry to miss you, but 
 you would probably be as sorry to lose the visit. 
 So I excuse you, if I must ; but I am sorry to 
 lose you." 
 
 " What a sorry affair we are ! But it will 
 soon be over. I '11 find comfort in Richmond, 
 and you '11 find it in Miss Appleton like 
 Naomi." 
 
 I began to suspect that Miss Campbell was 
 not altogether happy. Harry had been paying 
 114
 
 her much less attention in the last few weeks 
 than formerly. This might or might not affect 
 her frame of mind. If matters stood between 
 them as was commonly reported, it should. Be- 
 sides, an interruption had come in the series of 
 excursions which she and I had taken with semi- 
 regularity since my first interest in her as a young 
 school-girl. She could not care much for this ; 
 but she might care for the cause of it. She would 
 have come very near the truth if she had said 
 that people deserted her for Miss Appleton. I 
 had done so unconsciously. I suspected that 
 Harry had done so, too, though he was proba- 
 bly thoroughly conscious of it. A girl of her 
 disposition could not help caring that another had 
 supplanted her, even though she cared but little 
 intrinsically for the position lost. At all events, 
 she was just then none too fond of Ruth. 
 
 When I called for Ruth, Saturday afternoon, 
 she was putting up the lunch. She took me into 
 the dining-room to help. I watched her deft 
 fingers making small parcels and packing them 
 into incomprehensibly small space. 
 "5
 
 " Did you say that he is very lonesome ? " 
 she asked, as she examined a flask carefully be- 
 fore putting in cold tea. 
 
 " I don't know whether he is always so, but 
 he has been frightfully so during the last week." 
 
 " Is it homesickness ? " 
 
 " Much of it is not ; perhaps some of it is. 
 He has unfortunately seen the worst side of life 
 here, and he has begun to lose faith in the good ; 
 he begins to fear that all good appearances are 
 but shams." 
 
 " How horrible ! " 
 
 " I want to give him a glimpse of the best 
 of " I stopped. It might not be wise to tell 
 Miss Appleton just what I thought of her. Be- 
 sides, none of us is quite himself if he is supposed 
 to be on his best behavior. If we know that 
 others are watching us, and are expecting us to 
 do certain acts of graciousness, we are uncom- 
 fortably self-conscious. Spontaneity is gone, or, 
 at least, though it be not, we are never sure of 
 it. So I spared her. "I want to get him away 
 from the town and from all the thoughts con- 
 nected with it," I said. 
 116
 
 She was putting knives and forks into the bas- 
 ket. She stopped with them in mid-air. 
 
 " Is he very bashful, do you think ? " 
 
 "I really don't know how he would be with 
 a young woman ; I fear so." 
 
 She put the knives and forks at the bottom. 
 She hesitated a moment, and then took them out 
 again. 
 
 "Wherefore?"! asked. 
 
 " You will see when the time comes," she 
 answered gayly. 
 
 She started for the kitchen, but came back. 
 
 " Are you willing to be a martyr for this 
 young man's sake ? " she asked. 
 
 " How much of a martyr ? " 
 
 "Oh, suppose you knew that your canoe 
 would tip you out, would you still go for his 
 sake ? " 
 
 " Yes, provided you were there to rescue me 
 with your strong swimming stroke. Why ? " 
 
 " I was wondering how much you care to 
 please him." 
 
 She went out. In a few minutes she returned 
 with another flask. An ill-concealed smile 
 117
 
 played about her face as she put it at the top of 
 the basket. 
 
 At four o'clock, we were at the landing. My 
 new friend had been accustomed to a canoe from 
 childhood ; he came from a lake country. Miss 
 Appleton at once put him at his ease by telling 
 me that he and she were going to turn the tables 
 on me, that they were going to do the pad- 
 dling, and treat the host as guest. As she knew 
 the stream and he did not, she took the after 
 paddling seat. I sat between them on the bot- 
 tom of the canoe, with my hat lying by my side. 
 The conversation was spasmodic, touching upon 
 canoeing, the stream, the trees, the shadows. 
 The full length of a canoe is not the best dis- 
 tance for continued conversation. 
 
 Young Cobb was a good paddler, and he knew 
 it. He knew, too, that Ruth saw it. This 
 source of satisfaction told upon him. His tim- 
 idity wore off under it. His wit was not slow ; 
 and, encouraged by our occasional remarks or 
 questions, his words came easily. 
 
 We had been paddling about half an hour, 
 when Ruth declared that she was thirsty. 
 118
 
 " Mr. Cobb," she said, " won't you open 
 the basket there in the bow, and take out the 
 flask that lies on the top and bring it down to 
 me ? " 
 
 He found it without difficulty, and stepped 
 down toward me, with his paddle in one hand. 
 I moved to let him by. The canoe gave a 
 little lurch. 
 
 " Be careful, Mr. Robertson," she exclaimed, 
 laughing, " or you '11 have us upset. There, 
 don't bother to come away by, but let me reach 
 the flask over Mr. Robertson's head." 
 
 She reached forward to take it, throwing a 
 shawl playfully around my shoulders as she did 
 so. I wondered a little at it. She still held her 
 paddle, and he held his. Neither alone could 
 pull the drinking-cup from the bottom of the 
 flask except after laying down the paddle. 
 
 " Hold on to the top, and I will pull the cup 
 from the bottom," she said to him. 
 
 It stuck. They pulled hard, and then I felt 
 something give way. On the moment the canoe 
 gave a deep lurch to one side, and water came 
 pouring into my eyes and mouth. 
 119
 
 " We 're over ! " I cried. 
 
 A rippling laugh came from over my head. 
 I shook the water out of my eyes, and found my- 
 self sitting as before in the bottom of the canoe. 
 Ruth and Cobb were shaking with laughter. 
 The flask had broken in two directly above me. 
 
 The shawl had kept my clothes dry, but my 
 face and hair were dripping. When I saw the 
 broken flask, and realized what a spectacle I 
 must present, I could not help laughing heartily 
 at myself. Cobb joined more freely when he saw 
 how I took it. From that moment we were 
 all on the best of terms. A little wholesome 
 laughter will break even the biggest barrier. 
 
 When we reached the place which we had 
 chosen for luncheon, Cobb fell back into his old 
 reserve. For a few moments I could not ex- 
 plain the change. I soon discovered, however, 
 that he did not know just what to do with him- 
 self. It was contrary to his sense of propriety 
 to lie back lazily while Miss Appleton spread 
 the lunch. He was nervous to be doing some- 
 thing as his share of the work, and yet he dared 
 not offer his clumsy fingers to help about the
 
 basket. While I was wondering what to do to 
 put him at his ease, Ruth looked up at him. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Cobb, have you a knife ? " 
 
 " Yes. Would you like it ? " 
 
 " I am going to ask you to do a very difficult 
 piece of work. I did n't bring any knives or 
 forks. We must have at least one of each, and 
 you will have to whittle them for us. We can 
 eat from our fingers ; but I want a knife and 
 fork for handling butter, sardines, and the like. 
 Do you suppose you can make them ? " 
 
 She was looking straight into his eyes, and 
 smiling. I wondered whether a man could n't 
 do anything under the sun if that girl looked at 
 him so and asked him. 
 
 I knew now why she had left out the knives 
 and forks. 
 
 " How wonderfully thoughtful you are ! " I 
 exclaimed, when he had gone to find the proper 
 sticks for whittling. 
 
 " How sillily so ! I want to say to myself. I 
 did one frightfully silly thing to-day. Do you 
 remember my asking you whether you objected 
 to being a martyr for his sake ? Well, like a silly 
 
 121
 
 child, I planned that ducking for you, though 
 not just in that way. I remembered that a good 
 laugh is the best way to do away with stiffness. 
 So I took a broken flask purposely, hoping to 
 have some little fun out of it. I had to make 
 you the victim, for I feared that he would think 
 it unmannerly to laugh if I were the victim ; 
 but it turned out ever so much better than I 
 expected. Yet I feel that it was very childish 
 to make it deliberately at all." 
 
 " I don't see it so. It had just the effect you 
 wanted." 
 
 " Yes ; but it seems like deceiving him." 
 
 " No ; for the actual happening at any 
 rate, my thinking that we had tipped over 
 was unpremeditated. It certainly was very 
 funny. It goes to prove what I just said, 
 that you are wonderfully thoughtful." 
 
 Her only answer was a smile and a playful 
 "Pooh!" 
 
 I suppose all New England country boys are 
 experts with the jack-knife, or aspire to be. 
 Whittling is almost the national perennial amuse- 
 ment. Cobb was no exception. Before the
 
 coffee was ready, he laid before Miss Appleton 
 a slender, straight-bladed, flexible knife and two 
 strong, three-pronged forks. 
 
 " How beautiful ! Where did you learn to 
 make such beauties ? " 
 
 " I learned to make knives and forks on the 
 Madawanipee River ; I can't remember the 
 time when I could n't whittle." 
 
 " I thought that you had but recently come 
 to Madawanipee." 
 
 " That is true. I never tried to make a knife 
 or fork before." 
 
 " Oh, then you not only learned the process, 
 but discovered it as well." 
 
 Our luncheon was very simple, but it was 
 eminently fitting, a compliment merited by 
 few luncheons put up by picnicking women. It 
 was not composed one half of cake, one quarter 
 of mashed pie, and the remainder of thick sand- 
 wiches which could not be bitten through. 
 Everything was recognizable at first sight. The 
 salad I won't risk my literary reputation by 
 trying to describe it knew its place ; it hadn't 
 gone visiting among the wafers, pickles, and 
 123
 
 sugar. The cake was not thirst-inspiring, and 
 there was no needless loaf to carry back. 
 
 Miss Appleton sat on a little knoll, with her 
 back against a tree. Cobb sat upon a stone at 
 her right hand ; and I rested upon one elbow 
 on the grass at her feet, happy, and caring only 
 that they would not remind me that I was not 
 young like them. 
 
 "How long have you been here?" Miss 
 Appleton asked, turning to Cobb. 
 
 "About three months." 
 
 "Do you like the town ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it 's very pretty. I am getting along 
 pretty well here ; and yet I ought to say, if I 'm 
 going to be frank, that I don't like it." 
 
 " How strange ! It 's pretty, and you are 
 prosperous, and yet you don't like it." She 
 looked up into his face as if he were about to 
 tell some very interesting story. 
 
 " I seem to be out of my element here," he 
 said. " I seem to live in an atmosphere that 
 does n't agree with me. I 'm irritable, sour, 
 what I believe you call cynical, all the time. I 
 was never so at home." 
 124
 
 " Tell me about your home, won't you ? I 
 love all New England towns." 
 
 " It is n't much of a town, nothing but a 
 hamlet ; two stores, a blacksmith-shop, a saw- 
 mill, a tavern, a church, and a dozen houses 
 are all." 
 
 " That 's all the more interesting. I think 
 I can see the place now. On summer noons, 
 not a sound is heard except the clatter of dishes 
 when you pass a house, or the munching of a 
 horse which crops the grass at the side of the 
 road. It is quiet like that all day, is n't it, 
 except for the occasional rattle of the big chain 
 that draws logs up into the mill, or the occa- 
 sional soothing buzz of a saw, or the ring of the 
 blacksmith's anvil ? " 
 
 " Yes ; it is quiet always. Now and then a 
 farmer's wagon rattles down the hill, or a mow- 
 ing-machine clatters along the road ; but most 
 of the time it is perfectly still." 
 
 " Yes ; as you spoke I could hear the creak 
 of the whiffle-tree on the farmer's wagon and the 
 click, click, click of the mowing-machine. Does 
 the mill run by water ? " 
 125
 
 "Yes." 
 
 *' And does the brook that feeds it flow 
 through the hamlet, with a well-worn bridge 
 over it ? " 
 
 " Yes." He smiled at her guesses. 
 
 " I think I can see the village now. One 
 can lie on the grass under the trees beside the 
 road by the bank of the stream day after day, 
 and watch the colors come and go, and hear and 
 see the birds, and watch the grazing cattle, and 
 see the people drive lazily by, and never hear a 
 harsh sound, nor see a hideous thing, nor feel 
 an ignoble impulse, nor know of vice or pain or 
 struggle." 
 
 She had been speaking quietly and slowly, 
 with her eyes fixed on the canoe. It lay half- 
 hidden behind the bushes. For my mood there 
 was a poem in its beautiful lines and in its grace- 
 ful poise upon the water. He looked only at 
 her. His face brightened as her imagination 
 took her farther and farther into his old home. 
 
 " But tell me about the people," Ruth con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " There is nothing to tell. They are very 
 126
 
 plain people, dressed in coarse, ill-fitting clothes ; 
 but they are honest." He spoke with something 
 of pride ; but as he went on his face darkened, 
 and his tone became bitter. " They are awk- 
 ward, bungling in everything they do. They 
 never have any pleasure, as pleasure goes here. 
 I suppose they cheat themselves into thinking 
 they are happy, in their ignorance ; and I sup- 
 pose they are no better than they ought to be, 
 nor as good as they look." 
 
 He was not looking at her now ; but she 
 had watched him from the moment his tone 
 changed. 
 
 " Do you know, I like to think of the people 
 in these towns as well as to think of the towns 
 themselves. They have such glorious freedom. 
 A woman is in the middle of her washing, with 
 her sleeves rolled above the elbows. If she 
 wants to speak to a neighbor, out she goes. No 
 dressing, not even the sleeves turned down, 
 no windows and doors to lock, but just ' up 
 and away.' In such places, people live their 
 own lives in their own way. Little or nothing 
 is done or left undone for fear of what ' people 
 127
 
 will say ; ' and everybody helps everybody else. 
 Is n't it so?" 
 
 "Yes, it must be admitted that's a thing people 
 are generous of; they are generous of trouble, 
 though far from it with respect to money." 
 
 " Tell me about the young women, or girls. 
 There must be some about my age." 
 
 " Yes, there are two in the village ; one is 
 the school-teacher, and the other is the doctor's 
 daughter. Well, the school-teacher is tall and 
 dark, with black hair and smaH hands and " 
 
 Miss Appleton interrupted him with a laugh. 
 
 " Would it make any difference if she were 
 light and short, with red hair and small hands ? " 
 
 I expected to see him close his shell again ; 
 but he seemed to enjoy her raillery. 
 
 " Why, no, I suppose not. But I thought 
 you wanted to hear about her." 
 
 " So I do ; but the length and breadth and 
 color of her are not she. I would rather know 
 what she reads and what she dreams and what 
 she does with her time. But never mind. You 
 are not much interested in the school-teachei 
 yourself. Tell me about the doctor's daughter. 
 128
 
 You may tell me about her height and hair and 
 hands if you like." 
 
 " It does n't make much difference. She 's 
 tall, but light, and her hands and feet are not so 
 small as the school-teacher's." He smiled, as 
 if to describe her in such a way were superflu- 
 ous. " I don't know what she thinks about ; I 
 could never altogether make out. Many days 
 she takes a book out to the river in the morning, 
 and does n't come back till night ; but when 
 she comes back, her eyes are very bright, and 
 her face is very peaceful, or if not altogether 
 peaceful, her mouth is very firm, though it is 
 never hard. And then other days she goes over 
 to old Aunt Hannah's, as everybody calls her, 
 and stays there all day, talking and reading out 
 loud. Sometimes, when some of the people 
 who live alone are sick, she goes with her father, 
 and stays to nurse them. And then when there 
 is n't any minister in town, she runs the Sunday- 
 school." 
 
 "Tell me more about her." She looked 
 into his face in a way that said even more than 
 her words. 
 
 129
 
 " There is n't much more to tell. She is a 
 sort of ubiquitous spiritual force in the com- 
 munity. She always carries sunshine with her, 
 and I was going to say " he smiled at the 
 mixed metaphor " a sunshine that leaves a 
 good taste in the mouth. As you said a few 
 moments ago of the village itself, one knows 
 nothing of vice or pain or struggle when she 's 
 about." 
 
 " I am inclined to get angry at people who 
 speak, or even think, slightingly of country life. 
 So many of the noblest, kindest, purest lives are 
 lived in our New England country villages, in 
 what seems outwardly like emptiness ! I should 
 like to know this friend of yours." 
 
 " She did one very funny thing just before 
 I came away. She had done something I 
 don't know what that she blamed herself for. 
 She said it was giving in to a temptation that 
 made her hate herself. There was a little party 
 that evening, and people came from all the coun- 
 try round. For us it was a great affair, though 
 it would seem awfully small in Madawanipee. 
 She cared very much about it, and had been 
 130
 
 looking forward to it for days ; but to punish 
 herself, or discipline herself, she called it, 
 she went home when the evening was only half 
 over, and she was enjoying herself most. I told 
 her it was silly ; but she said she was going to 
 exercise her will-power in some wholesome 
 discipline." 
 
 "I believe in that girl," Ruth said. 
 " It may have been a silly thing to do, but it 
 showed a spirit I like." 
 
 There was no mistaking Cobb's gratification. 
 His face did not darken again ; not even embar- 
 rassment came into it again. There was an 
 energy in it that I had not seen before since he 
 first came to Madawanipee. He was himself 
 again, and it was almost a beautiful self. 
 
 131
 
 IX. 
 
 IN quiet Madawanipee the function of a 
 church is hardly less social than religious. 
 On Sunday mornings everybody sees everybody 
 else, if not at church, at least on the way. 
 
 The first Sunday in June was the most beau- 
 tiful of the spring. There had been a slight 
 rain during the night, but a breeze which had 
 sprung up about daybreak had cleared the sky. 
 The new-blown leaves were quivering in the 
 ecstasy of life. The air was crisp, but not pene- 
 trating ; every breath seemed to give new firm- 
 ness and new energy to every part of body and 
 soul. It was hard to pass within the church 
 walls to dimness and heaviness of atmosphere 
 and dignified confinement. 
 
 As the moment for beginning the service 
 approached, I began to fear that Ruth was not 
 coming ; but soon I saw her face in the door- 
 way. She brought the morning with her into 
 132
 
 the church. It was easy to wonder whether 
 she had not even been the maker of the morn- 
 ing. Its calm energy but tender blitheness had 
 their counterparts in her eyes, her cheeks, and 
 her step. The church was no longer dim, nor 
 its atmosphere heavy. 
 
 In response to the prayer before the sermon, 
 a short aria was given. It seemed to be a very 
 song of Nature. It began with the first breath 
 of morning air, as one would sing on waking ; 
 then came the growing exhilaration, the eager- 
 ness of conscious vigor rising into higher and 
 higher regions of activity ; it closed with a mount- 
 ing strain of aspiration. The music was new 
 to me. I had heard nothing new so good for 
 a long time. 
 
 At the close of the sermon, the preacher 
 prayed that God would teach us about ourselves, 
 and help us to hold to every fragment of truth 
 and love and purity in our hearts. I watched 
 Ruth's face, and saw that she joined the prayer 
 with passionate earnestness. God had never 
 seemed so great before. Even this girl, most 
 true, most kind, most pure, was asking God to 
 133 

 
 make her truer, kinder, purer ; and she knew 
 that he would do it. I cried out, almost aloud, 
 unconsciously, " How great, O God, thou 
 art!" 
 
 At the close of the service, I busied myself 
 with my gloves in the hope that my delay would 
 put me in Ruth's way. Before I reached the 
 door, Cobb met me. 
 
 " Mr. Robertson," he said, " I can't thank 
 you enough for yesterday. I feel like a new 
 man to-day. Last evening I went out on the 
 street, and everything looked different. Instead 
 of wondering whether every man I saw was a 
 rake and every woman a plaything, voluntary 
 or involuntary, I found myself seeing the good 
 things in their faces. If I saw a bundle in a 
 man's hand, it seemed as if it must be a present 
 for his child or wife or somebody, and not 
 something that he wanted to hide. The letters 
 which the girls were taking from the post-office 
 were innocent schoolmate effusions, not secret 
 flirtations by mail. I was almost optimistic ; but 
 I can afford to be so for awhile after so many 
 weeks of cynicism. You and Miss Appleton
 
 set me free. Best of all, what Miss Appleton 
 said about the doctor's daughter put the solid 
 ground under my feet. When my morbid state 
 had taken away my faith in my sister, life was 
 pretty hard living." 
 
 Before we overtook Ruth, one of Cobb's 
 employers came up and carried him off for din- 
 ner. When I met her, she was unengaged. I 
 walked home with her. 
 
 To me the day had been wondrously beau- 
 tiful, the sunlight, the crisp air, the waving 
 leaves, the song, the sermon, the prayer; and 
 now, for a time at least, Ruth was mine. It 
 was one of the rich charms of the girl that her 
 thoughts and sympathies were never alien to her 
 companion. I found her enthusiastic over the 
 day and the service, except the music, which 
 she did not appear to appreciate. 
 
 " Do you know who wrote it ? " I asked. 
 
 " I believe it was an Agnes Wentworth." 
 
 The name staggered me. 
 
 " Have you ever heard it before ? " 
 
 " Yes ; they sang it often at the church I used 
 to attend in Vermont." 
 '35
 
 " But tell me about the writer, if you can. 
 Who is she ? " 
 
 " She is a young woman who was educated 
 in the public schools there." 
 
 "Do you mean that she is a young woman 
 now ? " I asked eagerly. 
 
 A half-smile played about her mouth. 
 
 "Yes," she answered; "she is a young 
 woman now." 
 
 Her answer would have satisfied much of my 
 curiosity, if her manner had not betrayed that 
 the story was not half told. 
 
 " Do you know her ? " I asked. 
 
 "Yes, pretty well," she answered with a 
 smile. 
 
 " I really think the song was very beautiful, 
 and I want to hear about the writer. Won't 
 you tell me about her ? Judging from your face, 
 I am inclined to think that there is some mys- 
 tery. Years ago, I knew a young woman of 
 that name ; and I am naturally interested to hear 
 of this other one." 
 
 "There isn't much to tell. I wrote the 
 song, and I signed it by my two middle names. 
 136
 
 My mother liked the name Ruth, and my father 
 wanted me to keep my mother's full name ; so 
 I was named Ruth Agnes Wentworth." 
 
 " Agnes Wentworth ! Where did your 
 mother live ? " I asked almost breathlessly. 
 
 "Highbank, Vermont." 
 
 We were crossing a bridge over a brook 
 which ran through the town. I stopped and 
 leaned forward over the rail, looking into the 
 water. I needed time to get my thoughts to- 
 gether. We had often stopped at the bridge 
 before, and she thought nothing of my abrupt- 
 ness. She followed my example. 
 
 " You never mentioned Highbank before," 
 I said. 
 
 " Have n't I ? I have often spoken of the 
 place, though perhaps not by name." 
 
 " Oh, I see. You always said ' in Vermont.' 
 Do you know when your mother was born ? " 
 
 "In eighteen thirty." 
 
 There was no further doubt. The morn- 
 ing's happiness was complete ; 't was overflow- 
 ing, so that I dared not look at her. On the 
 night of the symphony concert, I had put down 
 137
 
 the dream that the new face was the old face 
 come back to earth and to me ; yet it was true. 
 The old face, the old voice, the old greatness of 
 soul, had been repeated from the mother in the 
 child to cheer my last years ; and the old love 
 in my heart had gone forth to meet them. 
 
 Ruth seemed to respect my revery ; but at 
 last she broke the silence : 
 
 " You seem much interested in Highbank ; 
 do you know the town ? " 
 
 " I lived there many years ; I went to school 
 there." 
 
 " Did you know my mother ? " 
 
 " Yes. It seems incredible that you are her 
 daughter. You are much like her, almost the 
 image of her as she was forty years ago ; but I 
 thought I knew all about her family. I did not 
 know she had a daughter so much younger than 
 herself; I thought your sister Kate your mother's 
 youngest child." 
 
 " She was while she lived. I was born two 
 years after Kate died." 
 
 " I was away from Highbank all those years ; 
 and though I knew when Kate died, I never 
 138
 
 heard of you." I did not tell her that for years 
 I kept trace of all the happenings in her mother's 
 life ; and then, finding that my heart, instead of 
 healing, only grew sorer, I heard only such news 
 as chanced to come to me. " Have you any 
 relatives in Highbank now ? " 
 
 " Mrs. Arthur Thomas is my mother's 
 youngest sister. Do you know her ? " 
 
 " Yes. I never knew that she was a Miss 
 Wentworth. By the way, were you staying 
 with her nine years ago this winter ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Then you are the Ruth who gave the little 
 shivering negro boy a sled-ride, and lent him a 
 muff. Do you remember it ? " 
 
 " I remember it chiefly because a gentleman 
 came to the house that evening to see Uncle 
 Arthur, and spoke kindly about it. Are you the 
 gentleman ? " 
 
 " Yes. Do you know that though you have 
 been here but six months or so, I owe to you 
 much of the pleasure that I have had in Mada- 
 wanipee during the seven or eight years that I 
 have been here ? " 
 
 139
 
 "How can that be?" 
 
 " When I saw you at Highbank, I discovered 
 how interesting some children can be. I won- 
 dered afterward whether others would not be 
 interesting if I could only get to know them. I 
 immediately set to work to find out. I picked 
 up acquaintance with a good many children here, 
 and have found in their freshness and heartiness 
 both moral and intellectual help." 
 
 As I spoke, I wondered whether every beau- 
 tiful thing in my life had not come through 
 either Agnes or Ruth. I fell into revery, such 
 revery as one falls into during perfect happiness 
 and in perfect companionship. For several mo- 
 ments neither of us spoke. 
 
 "I am going to Highbank this week," she 
 said meditatively. " I doubt whether I come 
 back here at all. Mr. Loring is coming Tues- 
 day, and Mrs. Loring does not need my company 
 any longer." 
 
 I did not realize just what she had said. I 
 only knew that now, just as she was more to 
 me than ever before, more than I had dreamed 
 that she could ever be, she told me that she was 
 
 to drop out of my life. 
 
 140
 
 Quick as the impulse, I cried out. 
 
 " Oh, my Ruth, I can't let you go now ! " 
 
 She turned suddenly to look at me. I had 
 never seen her much moved before. Her face 
 had lost its light ; for once I saw it without sym- 
 pathy. She looked at me without seeming to 
 see me. She looked dazed, as if she had just 
 seen some awful thing, and was trying to grasp 
 the idea of it. In a moment or two her face 
 cleared ; the light of sympathy came back. 
 Without speaking, she looked at me kindly, 
 wonderingly, almost pityingly. 
 
 " Pardon me," I pleaded ; " I spoke on im- 
 pulse. You cannot know how much of new 
 life you have brought me, how much of new 
 faith, of new aspiration ; for even an old man 
 may have his aspirations. To all that you had 
 done for me you just added the vivid memory, 
 I may almost say the representation, of what is 
 dearest to me in Highbank, young manhood 
 and womanhood there ; and it was you who 
 opened my eyes to know fondness for children, 
 perhaps the greatest pleasure of my last eight 
 years. Now you tell me that you are about to 
 141
 
 go away ; so I cried out impulsively that I could 
 not let you. Forgive me ! " 
 
 Her face brightened. Doubtless her thought 
 was different from mine, but I could not feel 
 despondent when I saw brightness in her face. 
 I was almost willing to trust my moods to her. 
 I felt that if I had reason to be despondent her 
 keen sympathy would know it. Even before 
 she spoke, I knew that there must be hope 
 for me. 
 
 " But you go to Highbank sometimes ; and 
 there you see all the old scenes, and won't need 
 me to represent them. And, besides, you will 
 come to see me at my uncle's ; and perhaps we 
 can take some walks or rides as we have done 
 here, and you can show me your favorite bits 
 of Nature. You will tell me about my mother 
 as a girl, too, so far as you knew anything about 
 her." 
 
 142
 
 X. 
 
 ON the afternoon before Ruth's departure 
 from Madawanipee, I called upon her. 
 Though we had been together so much, or per- 
 haps because we had been together so much, I 
 had never called upon her before. I smiled at 
 the thought of an old man like myself making 
 a formal call upon a young girl. I had never 
 been much given to calling ; and as the years 
 went on, I became more and more averse to it. 
 The sensation was almost new. As I left 
 home, I thought of my first call as a young man 
 in Highbank. I smiled at my youthful terror 
 lest my long legs, my hat, my gloves, and my 
 arms should not distribute themselves in due 
 form about my corner of the room. It had 
 seemed so presumptuous to take off my overcoat, 
 as if I were an expected guest, that in spite of 
 warnings from all the authorities I respected, I 
 had worn it into the parlor. Somehow we never 
 143
 
 do a thing easily until we have done it often, or 
 unless we have seen so much of the world that 
 the mere doing of new things has become an old 
 story. To my bashfulness, everything new was 
 awful to contemplate just because it was new. 
 
 As I approached Mrs. Loring's house, I felt 
 much as if I were going to my own funeral. 
 Certainly a part of me was to be buried ; and 
 there was to be nothing picturesque in it, as 
 there had been in the funeral of myself which 
 I had once dreamed about. Yet even this cere- 
 mony had one bright feature, I was expected. 
 When the bell rang at sharp three o'clock, Ruth 
 would know that it was I. For the day, at least, 
 I was to hold a place in her thoughts strictly my 
 own. I felt a bit of pride that I was a person 
 of so much importance that the much-sought 
 Miss Appleton wished me to come to her by 
 appointment. Even sorrow, unless it has become 
 almost despair, cannot bury our vanity. 
 
 At my entrance, she laid down a notebook, 
 which apparently she had been studying. 
 
 "It was very good of you to come," she 
 said. 
 
 144
 
 "I try always to be good to myself," I 
 answered. 
 
 " And to other people ? " 
 
 " Some other people." 
 
 " I hope you number me among them. If 
 you do, I shall ask lots of things of you. Do you 
 want my parting instructions ? " 
 
 " Surely. It is very good of you to leave 
 even so much of yourself behind." 
 
 " But they are not myself, you know ; they 
 have chiefly to do with other people." 
 
 " I can hardly fancy your giving instructions 
 which are not parts of yourself. You put your- 
 self into all you do ; so I shall find you in what- 
 ever you are so good as to leave for me to do." 
 
 " I 'm not going to leave you much ; but you 
 have kindly helped me in so many things which 
 I have tried to do that I have taken it for granted 
 that you will keep up your part of them after 
 my part stops." 
 
 This little speech was the pleasantest thing 
 
 that I had ever heard her say, and I cannot help 
 
 putting it down in black and white to stand to 
 
 my credit after I am gone. I had not only helped 
 
 '45
 
 her, as it was my one eager joy to do, but I had 
 done my part so well that she did not know that 
 it was chiefly for her sake that I did it. 
 
 "I believe Frank Murphy at the jail," she 
 continued, "is in a fair way to become a man 
 at last, after all these years of mere animal life ; 
 and his friend who spoke to you the day you 
 went with me seems to have a good deal of pur- 
 pose, and of grit, as well. Won't you go to see 
 them, to keep up their courage, sometimes ? " 
 
 " Most gladly ; but will they see me, and 
 keep up my courage ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " Won't they be so lonesome at losing you 
 that they will only despise a man like me for a 
 friend ? " 
 
 " Of course not. What they want is sym- 
 pathy, not pity or patronage, but a sense that 
 somebody wants them to succeed in getting upon 
 a new plane, believes that they will succeed, and 
 will give them a hand of friendship and encour- 
 agement now and then. You can do that." 
 
 " I can do all you say, but I can't make 
 them feel that I do it. I can't make them feel 
 146
 
 my sympathy as you do ; and, besides, I fear 
 that I have n't so much. You don't know the 
 power you have for doing good in the world. 
 You must not suspect that every one can do what 
 you can. You can't realize that to the ordinary 
 mortal you seem like a being from another world, 
 all sympathy, all kindness, all hopefulness, all 
 purity, all graciousness. You can do more good 
 by your mere temporary presence among peo- 
 ple than I could do, even though I were a woman 
 myself, in a score of visits. Pardon me for 
 speaking so plainly, I 'm a blunt old man, 
 you know, but I don't want you to let your 
 power go unused through ignorance. You have 
 infinitely more of all that makes noble woman- 
 hood an inspiration than any other woman I 
 know. So don't expect too much from me, in 
 the way of accomplishment, at least ; you can't 
 expect too much in the way of endeavor, for I '11 
 try anything you ask." 
 
 " Now you make me feel uncomfortable," 
 she said, with a puzzling smile. " I feel that 
 I have either been deceiving you on the one 
 hand, or if not, that I have been a ' wicked and
 
 slothful servant.' But never mind ; I 'm going 
 to leave another bit of work for you, if you '11 
 take it." 
 
 " Certainly I shall. But again I must warn 
 you not to expect too much ; for I still insist that 
 you have a power that few in the world can 
 have to help people. Neither, I think, have 
 you neglected your opportunities. If you should 
 do nothing for your own development by such 
 a broad life as you are leading, you would soon 
 lose that power. The first requisite for such 
 power is a broad field of personal interests. So 
 please don't think I was asking you to lose 
 yourself in work for others ; I only wanted to 
 remind you that because of your own self-care 
 you have so much more power to care for 
 others." 
 
 " It 's very kind of you to encourage me so ; 
 but in spite of what you say I shall expect more 
 from you than I have myself accomplished. The 
 second case is a telegraph messenger boy, Johnny 
 Hardy. He has the making of a strong man in 
 him. I have been helping him to pick up 
 something of an education during his spare time. 
 148
 
 Will you help him in the same way after I have 
 gone?" 
 
 " He won't want me. He will think it a 
 bore to come to see me and seek for help. He 
 will think me an old fogy ; and after two or 
 three trials he will stop coming. But I can tell 
 you whom he will like as a guide ; that 's my 
 nephew, Harry Templeman. He has taken a 
 good deal of interest in Johnny already, espe- 
 cially of late ; and Johnny likes him. Let me 
 send him around to see you this evening, so that 
 you can instruct him in his duties. He will 
 be overjoyed to take, in any fashion, your 
 place." 
 
 "I fear he would spoil Johnny. I don't 
 mean do him harm ; but I fear that he would 
 not keep him up to the mark. Johnny has told 
 me something of their sudden friendship, if I 
 may call so unequal a thing a friendship ; and, 
 if I may speak so freely of your nephew, I begin 
 to suspect the genuineness of it all . Your nephew 
 is n't conscious of the reasons for his sudden in- 
 terest in Johnny ; and I fear that he will dis- 
 cover them by and by, and will then regret the 
 149
 
 bargain he makes with me. So I should prefer 
 that you would take my place." 
 
 " But, pray, how do you know so much 
 about my nephew's motives, more than he 
 does ? " 
 
 " Women often see things that men do not 
 see. Men must reason a thing out, and so must 
 have well-verified premises and other equipments 
 of logic. Women just see. To be sure, many, 
 perhaps most of them, often see what is n't 
 there to be seen, just as most men often reason 
 wrongly ; but many of them see truly." 
 
 " I should like to know this mystery of 
 Harry's attitude toward Johnny." 
 
 " But I 'm not likely to tell you," she 
 laughed. " He may tell you himself, when he 
 discovers it." 
 
 " Then I must help him discover it." 
 
 " Oh, no ; that would never do. You would 
 surely betray how your curiosity was excited ; 
 and that would involve me. Imagine the posi- 
 tion you would put me in by letting him know 
 that I thought I understood him better than he 
 understands himself! So you will please say 
 150
 
 nothing about it to him, and take Johnny under 
 your own supervision. He has no relatives here, 
 and needs supervision." 
 
 She was sitting in a large easy-chair, leaning 
 well back, with her feet half stretched out before 
 her. Her cheek rested against the back of her 
 chair, as her deep blue eyes looked at me. She 
 was clothed but I never can describe a 
 woman's dress. Yet one thing always impressed 
 me : other women looked as if they had clothes 
 made, and then somehow got inside of them ; 
 her clothes seemed so distinctly to belong to her 
 that one could not think of them as existing by 
 themselves. With her a change of gown was like 
 a change of expression, or of color, or of mood. 
 Clothing seemed never to add or take away or 
 alter her. In all garbs she was just herself. 
 
 Her arm, with its long firm hand, lay 
 stretched out on the table at her side. Her fin- 
 gers were toying with a new book on Plato. 
 She seemed to me an embodiment in repose of 
 all that was beautiful in life. There was about 
 her a sense of power that prepared one for any 
 accomplishment when activity began again.
 
 Before her, in the corner of the room, stood a 
 piano, covered with music, Wagner, Chopin, 
 Beethoven, Haydn, Bach. Photographs of a 
 few of the world's masterpieces of painting were 
 upon the walls, and half-a-dozen casts stood 
 about the room. 
 
 The world's treasures of highest thought, in 
 all lines of manifestation, were open to her, and 
 she knew how to use them. Had she chosen, 
 her beauty, shining out of her heart into her 
 face, could command admirers anywhere. Yet 
 she was unconscious of everything but the little 
 ragamuffin in the street, Johnny Hardy, telegraph 
 messenger No. 3. 
 
 She left me for a moment to get a few memo- 
 randa connected with the work which she was 
 to leave to me. While she was gone, the little 
 girl who had flirted with me in church, and 
 had asked in the garden for the " birdie song," 
 strayed into the room. When she saw me, she 
 started to withdraw ; but I coaxed her back. 
 She seemed half to remember me. She had a 
 pencil and paper in one hand and a sketch-book 
 in the other. 
 
 15*
 
 " Do you draw pictures ? " I asked. 
 
 ' Yeth 'm ; Wuth ith learnin' me." 
 
 " Do you draw pictures in the big book ? " 
 
 " No 'm. Wuth dwaws in it, an' 'en I twy 
 to dwaw the thame fing on a paper." 
 
 " Won't you let me see what you 've done ? " 
 
 She approached timidly at first, but courage 
 soon came. 
 
 " I did it all mythelf, an' Wuth did n't do 
 none." 
 
 She showed me a picture of a very rickety 
 table. Perhaps with the aid of a little stiffening 
 it would make a capital clothes-horse. 
 
 " Here ith what Wuth did," she explained, 
 handing me the sketch-book. 
 
 " Oh, I '11 let you thee a funny picture that 
 Wuth made the other day about thpillin' thum 
 water." 
 
 She turned the pages clumsily, and finally 
 showed me myself drenched with water, while 
 Ruth and my friend Cobb were holding their 
 sides with laughter. The likenesses were ex- 
 cellent. But I was more interested in the sketch 
 on the opposite page. It pictured me of gigantic 
 'S3
 
 stature, with a group of thin-faced, flat-chested, 
 slim-limbed dwarfs looking up at me. My pic- 
 ture was drawn in ink ; but the others were done 
 in pencil, as if by after-thought. 
 
 The child saw what I was looking at. 
 
 " The big man ith a good man ; an' the other 
 men want to be good like him tho they can be 
 big like him." 
 
 " How do you know that ? " I asked. 
 
 " Becauth Wuth tol' me the little men wanted 
 to be big like the big man, but could n't unleth 
 they did like he did. Wuth dwew the little 
 men one day jus' for me." 
 
 " You '11 be a big man some day, won't you ? " 
 
 " No 'm," she answered eagerly, and with 
 snapping eyes ; " I 'm goin' to be a big woman." 
 
 "Is that better than being a big man? " 
 
 *' Courth ! It ith better than anyfing elth in 
 the world; Wuth tol' me tho." 
 
 Though Ruth came in while I was looking 
 at the sketch-book, she made no comment ; but 
 the sketch and all it meant to me remained fresh 
 in memory. A man does n't forget that sort of 
 tribute, off-hand though it be. 
 '54
 
 Before I went, I chanced to comment upon 
 the volume of Plato with which she was toying, 
 and our conversation turned to her reading of 
 philosophy. I had never suspected the variety 
 of her interests. 
 
 " Do you care much for philosophy? " I asked. 
 
 " Yes, I try to read more or less in it ; but 
 the field is so enormous, and one's time is so 
 limited!" 
 
 " I did n't suppose women cared much for 
 that sort of thing. Woman's field is intuition, 
 not logic." 
 
 " You talk as if they were incompatible," she 
 answered, with an amused smile. 
 
 " They seldom or never go together." 
 
 " What heresy you talk ! They 're like man 
 and wife." 
 
 " Yes ; he 's the logic, and she 's the 
 intuition." 
 
 " Oh, no ! I shall have to change my fig- 
 ure. They 're like mountain-trail and carriage- 
 road ; the trail is shorter and more interesting, 
 but the carriage-road is more dignified, and 
 safer." 

 
 " I suppose in your philosophy you always 
 take the short cut." 
 
 " Yes ; but I generally go back and make the 
 trip over again by the road. I like to see how 
 stupid and slow and dull you men can be. I 
 could cut straighter roads myself sometimes, and 
 perfectly safe ones, too." 
 
 " I suppose I shall have to believe you. I 
 have seen evidence enough of it myself; but you 
 are the first woman I ever knew, I think," I 
 had to add " I think," for I could not grant her 
 unqualified superiority to Agnes even in this, 
 " who added to a wonderful intuition a head 
 for logic. 
 
 " To-day is a proper time for philosophy," 
 I continued, as I rose to go, " for I am sadly in 
 need of it. What word has your philosophy 
 for one who is fated to be wofully lonesome, as 
 I shall be after you have gone ? " 
 
 " I am afraid," she answered, smiling sym- 
 pathetically, " that it can only say that you 
 should n't bind your hopes to earthly things." 
 
 " That 's the logical part of your philosophy. 
 What does intuition say ? "
 
 " It says that if you are lonesome here, you 
 ought to go back to your old home, among old 
 friends, in Highbank." 
 
 " And young friends ? " 
 
 " I was n't thinking about them, very 
 much," she added conscientiously . 
 
 " I was. I suspect that if I return there, it 
 will be because they, and not the old friends, 
 draw me." 
 
 She held out her hand. As I held it, and 
 looked into her eyes, I forgot that I was supposed 
 to go. I was recalled to myself by feeling her 
 fingers slipping from my grasp. 
 
 I wonder how, when I reached the sidewalk, 
 I knew which way to turn.
 
 XI. 
 
 I HAD chosen the afternoon for my farewell 
 with Ruth, because she was going to a musi- 
 cale in the evening, and I could not be satisfied 
 with the few moments of time and the few 
 words of commonplace parting which we could 
 have in crowded rooms. 
 
 As the evening wore on, however, I was 
 unbearably restless. It was possible that I might 
 never see her again ; but I might see her once 
 more now if I would, for I had an invitation 
 to the musicale. I knew, however, that there 
 would be no comfort in such a meeting. 
 
 About nine o'clock, I closed my book and 
 went out for a short walk. Half-unconsciously, 
 like a business man who finds himself on a holi- 
 day wandering toward his office, I turned my 
 steps toward the house of Mrs. Pembroke, the 
 giver of the musicale. When I reached there, 
 I told myself that, since I had been invited, I 
 158
 
 had the privilege of taking all I could get of 
 the entertainment ; but I would not go in. I 
 compromised by walking about the house several 
 times. The windows were open, and the cur- 
 tains were up. For a solace to my conscience, 
 as it were, I fingered my invitation-card. As 
 I passed down a narrow street by the side, I 
 caught a glimpse through the window of Ruth. 
 She was standing, talking with a younger, shorter 
 girl. Her hair was arranged no ; there was 
 no arrangement about it ; it seemed to have 
 grown so. It parted loosely, falling naturally at 
 either side of the brow, a natural crown, 
 more glorious than any that goldsmith ever made. 
 Her gown was of dark, soft silk, with a tiny 
 golden figure. It was trimmed with ribbon of 
 a golden yellow. Strange though it may seem, 
 that vision of radiance reconciled me for all time 
 to hideous gowns. If it were a part of the code 
 of dress that none but radiantly beautiful women 
 should wear bright, dazzling gowns, not even 
 they would wear them. No woman would dare 
 to challenge criticism by declaring by her dress 
 that she thought herself beautiful. So, as I
 
 looked at Ruth, I praised the women who have 
 no sense of the fitness of things. I can even 
 look with complaisance at a gown which makes 
 a plain woman hideous ; I realize that it con- 
 tributes its mite to Ruth's privilege of giving our 
 eyes a feast. 
 
 The girl who was talking to her seemed un- 
 conscious that there was anything in the world 
 but they two, for Ruth's whole self appeared 
 intent upon the other's words. In her clear, 
 kindly eye, strong, tender mouth, and ready 
 smile, one seemed to see an infinite force, eager 
 in sympathy. The face of the other girl, as 
 Ruth looked down into it, was transfigured. I 
 needed no better proof that her power was not 
 a figment of my imagination ; others felt it as 
 well as I. 
 
 While I was watching, opposite the window, 
 I heard steps approaching. I sauntered slowly 
 on, taking a turn around the square. 
 
 When I reached the front of the house, 
 
 Ruth was near a window on that side. She 
 
 was talking to a young man of rather unsavory 
 
 reputation. He was commonly called a hand- 
 
 160
 
 some fellow, and was very popular, apparently, 
 with the girls of the town. I had watched him 
 often. I had seen him look hard into girls' 
 faces with his insinuating smile, as much as to 
 say, " You are bound to be interested in what 
 I say, because it is I who say it." I had seen 
 him look hard, almost fiercely, into the faces of 
 other girls, as if to try their wills against his, 
 as if to dare them to refuse to grant him a favor. 
 There was nothing of either sort in his face 
 now. He seemed to know that he was with a 
 girl who was to be neither flattered nor fright- 
 ened ; yet her manner was as I had always 
 seen it, gracious, sympathetic, cordial. He 
 seemed to feel that her sympathy was with his 
 better self, and that with his common self she 
 had nothing to do, refused to have anything 
 to do. I had never seen his face so manly 
 before. Her mere presence was enough to 
 bring to the surface the best in him. 
 
 Mrs. Pembroke had been kind-hearted toward 
 
 her children, and had allowed the older ones to 
 
 stay up for the evening. They passed through 
 
 the room, and Ruth called them to her. Her 
 
 161
 
 companion soon went off, and they arranged 
 themselves for a story. The youngest, a boy, 
 sat on her lap, with his light hair resting on her 
 shoulder ; his frank, eager eyes were upturned 
 to hers. The younger girl, dark-haired, with 
 rich, rounded features, stood on a footstool at 
 her side. The older girl, with flaxen hair, 
 clear-cut, almost thin features, sat on a footstool 
 at her knee, and with elbows resting in Ruth's 
 lap looked up into her face. The group served 
 well to show Ruth's beauty. The characteris- 
 tics of the three childish faces were combined 
 in her own, the frankness and eagerness 
 of the boy, the richness of abounding health 
 and spirits of the younger girl, the intellectual 
 acuteness and spirituality of the older. Her 
 face had in it a wonderful comprehensiveness, a 
 something which I have tried in vain to name, 
 a something indicative of a peculiar largeness 
 of nature. 
 
 It is not strange that as I watched her, realiz- 
 ing always that in a few hours she would be 
 gone, perhaps gone out of my life forever, I felt 
 that everything left behind was small and mean. 
 162
 
 I dreaded the days when every street-corner, 
 every road, every turn of the stream, would 
 speak eloquently of her, and no one would 
 be left behind to inspire new hopes and new 
 endeavors. 
 
 A few drops of rain brushed my cheek. I 
 hailed them eagerly. It had been clear early in 
 the evening, and I knew that few of Mrs. 
 Pembroke's guests would be prepared for rain. 
 I hurried home, and returned ready for service. 
 But the weather was fitful ; and when Ruth 
 came out, with Harry at her side, it was not 
 raining. Since they were unprotected, I fol- 
 lowed near enough to reach them if the shower 
 should return, but beyond the sound of their 
 voices. At Mrs. Loring's door, Harry left her ; 
 but before he had regained the street, I heard 
 her call him back. 
 
 I plodded home alone in the dark and the wet. 
 
 163
 
 XII. 
 
 EARLY in the summer I betook myself 
 to Highbank. I had often to confess to 
 myself that the new interest which had come 
 into my life was not easily to be disposed of. 
 After a score or more of years in which the 
 society of none had been indispensable to my 
 happiness, ay, even important, I now found 
 myself dependent upon this young girl. At first 
 I blamed myself for this dependence. I told 
 myself that I would conquer it. It seemed so 
 weak and undignified to wander about the coun- 
 try after her ! As a matter of moral discipline, 
 I could not afford to yield to the craving. I 
 soon gave up that high ground ; I was too old 
 to need training. If one must deny oneself even 
 into old age, when is to come unfettered enjoy- 
 ment ? The rest of my life would be too short 
 to require severe discipline ; so I yielded. 
 When the train drew into Highbank, about 
 164
 
 nine o'clock in the evening, a heavy mist, half 
 rain, half fog, enveloped the town. Every dis- 
 tant object was magnified. The men and women 
 wandering about the platform were Titanic in 
 size. Faces were indistinct ; it was such a night 
 that in war men might take friend for foe, or foe 
 for friend. 
 
 While I stood on the platform trying to decide 
 where to take up my quarters, I heard the down 
 train whistling around the curve just above the 
 station. As I turned to watch the headlight 
 stream through the fog, I caught sight of a figure 
 which reminded me of Ruth. The back was 
 toward me ; but as I drew nearer, I thought I 
 recognized Ruth's mackintosh and the hat which 
 was her favorite on stormy days. Just as the 
 engine of the train reached the end of the 
 platform, she slipped. She tried to recover 
 herself, but apparently caught her foot in her 
 gown, and fell over upon the track. As she fell, 
 her face turned toward me, and I thought I 
 saw Ruth's eyes looking in horror at the ap- 
 proaching light. 
 
 I fear that I am not very brave nor very 
 165
 
 quick. I am too likely to take it for granted 
 that people who get into difficulties will get out 
 alone much better than if confused by the prof- 
 fer of aid. Yet when I saw Ruth fall, I had 
 no such prudential thoughts. It seemed as if it 
 was I who was in danger, and as if I alone could 
 ward it off. 
 
 I dropped my luggage, and sprang for the 
 track. There was no time to lift or even drag 
 her. I could only half push, half roll her as she 
 attempted to regain her feet. She had half 
 risen ; my thrust sent her prostrate upon the 
 track beyond. I saw that she was safe. 
 
 The next that I knew I was here in the 
 hospital. I opened my eyes as from a long but 
 troubled sleep, and looked out upon the house- 
 tops. I saw the dear old steeple, into the belfry 
 of which I used to climb when a boy, and I 
 saw the clock-tower of the High School. Then, 
 from the relative positions of those landmarks, 
 I realized where I was. Soon came the dim 
 remembrance of an on-rushing railroad train, of 
 Ruth's danger, of my sudden spring, her second 
 fall, a blow ; and then all was a blank. 
 166
 
 No one was in the room, and I could satisfy 
 myself of my condition only by making a per- 
 sonal examination. I soon found that not all of 
 my ribs were just as they should be, and one 
 leg lay like a log. Suddenly I felt the shock 
 all over again, and lost myself. 
 
 When I again awoke, the chair at my side 
 was rocking gently, as if some one had but then 
 left it, and a paper was lying on it. I picked 
 up the paper, and read. Among the items was 
 the following : 
 
 " Last evening as the 8.45 northern train 
 was drawing into the station, Miss Maggie 
 Haggerty, a laundress who has been in the em- 
 ploy of James Upton, slipped upon a banana- 
 peel, and fell upon the track. An elderly 
 gentleman, apparently a stranger in town, ran to 
 her assistance, and pushed her from the track, 
 but could not make his own escape. He was 
 struck by the pilot of the approaching train, and 
 thrown several yards. He was taken to the 
 Highbank hospital. Several of his ribs were 
 broken, and it is feared that he is suffering from 
 severe internal injuries. He was still uncon- 
 167
 
 scious at one o'clock this morning. Letters and 
 papers found on his clothing make it clear that 
 his name is Alfred Robertson, but his residence 
 is unknown." 
 
 The paper bore date July 23. On a calen- 
 dar which hung on the wall opposite, all the 
 days of the month up to the twenty-sixth had 
 been crossed with a lead pencil. I had appar- 
 ently been unconscious nearly four days, for the 
 sun was now low. 
 
 As soon as I had rested from the reading, I 
 re-read the notice. Fortunate Maggie Haggerty ! 
 How little you know by how slight a thread 
 your life hung ! The dimming mist saved you. 
 I fear, and it shames me to confess it, that, if I 
 had not mistaken you for Ruth, my policy of 
 non-interference would have prevailed. Your 
 life would have paid. 
 
 168
 
 XIII. 
 
 AS I have lain quietly here in the hospital, 
 I have wondered that I ever called a 
 hospital a place of horrors, or even a place of 
 shadows, a place to shrink from. As a boy, 
 the mere approach to the building seemed to me 
 an intense but tenderly given " Hush ! " from 
 some sad-eyed watcher. Pain and deformity 
 and death lived here. My imagination felt the 
 surgeon's knife, the cripple's want of power, 
 the awfulness of the presence of death. In my 
 childish thought, the activity of the body was 
 the larger part of life. I felt that I could never 
 be maimed, or even seriously ill ; I should not 
 be I, if my body had lost any of its powers. I 
 had been told that to lose the power to think 
 was to lose identity. It must be equally true 
 that a boy who could not play ball and run 
 and skate and jump could not be I. Uncanny 
 indeed was the place where identity and even 
 life might be lost. 
 
 169
 
 One day I wondered how great were the 
 ills that people bore here. I distrusted the 
 strength of my imagination. I drew a pin from 
 the corner of my waistcoat, and pressed it 
 against my arm. I shut my teeth hard, and 
 clenched my hand. I pressed the pin harder 
 and harder, until an involuntary sigh escaped 
 me, and then I threw it from me. The next 
 moment I pitied myself for my weakness. Yet 
 when I looked at my arm and saw the puncture 
 tinged with blood, I dreaded to repeat the ex- 
 periment. Did I fear the pain, or did I fear to 
 maltreat and deface my own body ? I never 
 knew ; for to me every scar and deformity, even 
 the slightest, was uncanny. When I looked up 
 at the hospital windows, my imagination had 
 been strengthened. I knew that heroes lived 
 there ; and then a new wonder and a new terror 
 seized me. I did not know how many people 
 were within, but I knew that hundreds had 
 been there. Were heroes so common ? Oh, if 
 not, if some who entered there were not heroes, 
 how terrible a thing was life ! 
 
 I wandered slowly away to the edge of the 
 170
 
 hill, and looked far out over the valleys and the 
 low-lying hills to the mountains. They had 
 stood for centuries noble and untroubled. Should 
 man, who was greater even than the mountains, 
 live in fear of suffering ? Then came the 
 thought that drove away forever the shadows 
 hovering over the building. The world was 
 not full of heroes, nor yet was life a terrible 
 thing ; the suffering could make us heroes. The 
 evil not only carried its own cure, but left a 
 blessing behind. From that day, the hospital 
 was a place where heroes were made; it was 
 horrible only for those who proved to have 
 nothing even of the making of heroes in them. 
 Now I am here. How changed my ideas 
 of the place since I was a boy ! When I go 
 out, if I ever do, I shall be a cripple. I shall 
 walk no more. Yet I smile when I think of 
 the old fancy that to become a cripple is to lose 
 identity. To be sure, there is much in the hos- 
 pital methods that makes one wonder whether 
 one is one's self; but it is rather amusing than 
 otherwise. They have ticketed my bed with 
 my name, address, ailment, treatment, and the 
 171
 
 like, as if I were already but a thing, unable to 
 identify itself. George Talcott, an old school- 
 mate whom I came to see here occasionally, 
 used to say that he felt already labelled for the 
 other world: he wondered only that his sins 
 had not been enumerated on the tag for Saint 
 Peter's benefit. As he had always lived in a 
 family, he felt here the lack of personal interest 
 to which he had been accustomed. He felt 
 himself converted into a machine. Yet I find 
 that I rather like this mechanical method : it 
 seems to emphasize the comparative insignifi- 
 cance of the physical body. One realizes, per- 
 haps for the first time, how little one is depend- 
 ent upon it. 
 
 I hear the roll of wheels on the way to the 
 operating-room ; I hear the clink of bottles, the 
 hurrying of nurses, the anxious voices of in- 
 quiring friends ; I hear a nurse laughing and 
 chatting in the hall ; I hear the prattle of chil- 
 dren's voices from another ward; I hear the 
 tread of burdened steps from the ambulance to 
 the outer door, and even as the stretcher passes 
 my room I hear a doctor's laugh. What does 
 17*
 
 it all mean ? Suffering is here, gayety is there ; 
 but something greater than either is everywhere. 
 Ask the man who has just been brought from 
 the ambulance what is oftenest in his mind. 
 It is not the pain which he has borne, nor 
 that which he has yet to bear : it is the wife 
 who is anxious for him, and the child who 
 shudders at the thought of what has befallen 
 him ; it is the loss of time and money which 
 this accident entails, time and money which 
 should have gone to ease the wife's labors, to 
 educate the child, to make home brighter. Ask 
 the child whose laugh I heard why she laughed. 
 It was not relief from pain, or the thought of 
 escaping from a dreary hospital: it was the 
 thought of home, of loving ones ; or it was the 
 pleasant word of some passer-by, or a deed of 
 some true-hearted child in story. Go the rounds, 
 if you will ; you will find life not much differ- 
 ent here from what it is elsewhere. It is a 
 little more intense, only, because the chances 
 which befall the body here influence so power- 
 fully human relationships. Our thoughts, our 
 aims, our aspirations, our courage, our strength, 
 173
 
 our affections, which are our real selves, 
 hospitals cannot mar ; rather, hospitals help 
 them. 
 
 I hope that I am not too optimistic. I hope 
 that I have said not only what might be, but 
 what is, true. Perhaps I am prejudiced ; I have 
 had so full a life, even in this confinement, that 
 I suspect that others have fared in the same 
 way. But why should I? Others have no 
 Ruth! 
 
 One morning, a week after the accident, I was 
 lying listlessly with my face toward the open 
 door. A whispered consultation was holding 
 just out of sight in the corridor. 
 
 " Then there is no immediate danger, and he 
 can stand seeing people ? " 
 
 "Yes. The danger that we fear may not 
 manifest itself for a month yet." 
 
 In a moment Ruth entered my room. 
 
 "You are a naughty man," she exclaimed, 
 with one of the smiles which I had been for 
 weeks longing to see. " You said you would 
 come to see me when you came to Highbank. 
 You have been in town almost two weeks, and
 
 haven't been to see me yet. Aren't you 
 ashamed of yourself? You see I won't let you 
 free from your bargain, and so I have come to 
 see you, instead." 
 
 She held my hand while she spoke. 
 
 " Yes ; I am very much ashamed of myself, 
 but I am not without my excuse. Do you re- 
 member once saying that you always had an 
 uncomfortable sensation on looking at broken 
 things, shattered crockery, broken fences, 
 tumbled-down houses, abandoned, broken-ribbed 
 vessels ? You could hardly expect an aban- 
 doned, broken-ribbed vessel like me to thrust 
 himself in your sight. To be sure, I fear that I 
 should not have gone to see you even if you had 
 not told me about that old broken-ribbed vessel 
 at Harpswell, but at least I have that excuse." 
 
 "No, I can't accept that as an excuse. I 
 should n't have known that you were in such 
 shape unless you had told me, which you 
 would n't have done, and so I could not have 
 been pained." 
 
 " No ; but I must have limped from my in- 
 jury. I might counterfeit any kind of limp, 
 '75
 
 perhaps, well enough to deceive ordinary peo- 
 ple, but you, with your woman's intuition, and 
 in spite of an obvious non-sequitur, would at 
 once know that I had a broken rib or two." 
 
 " What sublime confidence you have in your 
 own theories about other people ! Don't you 
 want me to tell your fortune ? " 
 
 " I almost believe that you could. Do you 
 remember your prediction about your little tele- 
 graph boy ? You saw a future in him, though 
 no one else did, and it seems to be beginning, 
 already." 
 
 "But I couldn't tell a hero's fortune, a 
 real hero. And you know that is what every 
 one calls you, now." 
 
 " Heaven forbid ! If they only knew how 
 cowardly I was ! " 
 
 "Ah, but you did it ! The bravest man may 
 have most fear ; he is bravest because he faces 
 not only danger, but fear beside." 
 
 " Unfortunately I did not face the fear. I 
 was cowardly. Let 's not talk about it. Only 
 don't think me in any sense a hero. I was really 
 basely cowardly." 
 
 176
 
 " I can't let you talk so about yourself. It 
 was a grand thing to do, to risk your life for 
 some one you never saw before, a girl that 
 nobody knew." 
 
 She took my hand, thin and wrinkled with 
 age and with sickness, and held it while she 
 looked into my eyes and praised me. But for 
 me there was only distress in the words, the 
 caress, and the look ; and yet those were the first 
 words of praise and that was the first caress I 
 had ever had from a woman I loved. 
 
 " Oh, my child, how little you know of 
 what was in my mind ! I thought the 
 girl was you ! " 
 
 Once more the look of fright seeming to 
 ask " What have I done?" came into her 
 face as on that Sunday afternoon in Madawani- 
 pee when I begged her not to go away. But 
 now it was not a look of pity that followed it. 
 There was quiet triumph in her face. Her 
 heart could not fail to quicken when she knew 
 that a man had risked his life for her, and for 
 her not simply as a woman, but because she 
 was herself. 
 
 177
 
 Yet, as always, she put aside all selfishness, 
 and gave her thought to her companion. She 
 turned from her own triumph to my distress. 
 
 " It was a heroic thing to risk your life for 
 any one, friend or stranger. And you would 
 have done it just the same if you had known 
 that it was not I." 
 
 " No, my dear ; I cannot flatter myself with 
 any such thought. I believe that I should not ; 
 I am too cowardly. The fear of violence grows 
 with the years of immunity from it. I despise 
 myself as fully as if I had let the girl die, for I 
 did not risk anything to save her. All the risk 
 was taken for you. Nor was it brave to try to 
 save you. I could not help it. Is it heroic to 
 save one's head at the expense of one's arm? 
 When I saw you fall, as I thought, I felt that 
 it was I who fell, that the train was about to 
 crush out my life. Of course I tried to prevent 
 that. So please don't talk of bravery or heroism 
 anymore. Let 's forget it." 
 
 "I fear you're not likely to forget the acci- 
 dent soon. How long are they going to keep 
 you in bed ? " 
 
 178
 
 "Nobody knows. At least, so they say. I 
 may be out in a month ; I may end my days 
 here. But tell me how you happened to know 
 about my being here ? " 
 
 " The papers have been giving daily bulle- 
 tins about you. It was not until yesterday, 
 however, that I chanced to see your name. 
 They would n't let me in here yesterday after- 
 noon, because I came so late. So I had to wait 
 till this morning. Tell me how you are this 
 morning." 
 
 " I have grown rapidly better since I received 
 my first morning caller. It cheers me up." 
 
 "I am glad if people come to see you. It 
 tends to make life here much more endurable, 
 I suppose. Do you have many callers ? " 
 
 "I have had but one, so far." 
 
 " I hope that one comes often, then." 
 
 " I hope she will, for she does me a great 
 deal of good." 
 
 She looked down at me with a questioning 
 smile. 
 
 " Yes," I continued ; " you are my first visi- 
 tor. But I know that you have many demands 
 179
 
 on your time, and so I 'm going to look upon 
 this visit, and the next, if I get another, as espe- 
 cially great favors, to be grateful for always." 
 
 "Will you be grateful for more than one 
 other visit ? " 
 
 " Not only that, but the gratitude will grow 
 as the square of the number of visits. " 
 
 " I believe, then, that I never had so good 
 an opportunity to win gratitude. I have half a 
 mind to try to see how much I can win. How 
 fast it would grow, one, four, nine, sixteen, 
 twenty-five, thirty-six, forty-nine, sixty-four! 
 How jolly ! Are you sure your gratitude will 
 holdout?" 
 
 " Sure." 
 
 "I think I 'd like to run up as far as sixty- 
 four, any way, so I '11 try it." 
 
 And she has, and a good deal farther. I am 
 beginning to think that my gratitude is increas- 
 ing as the cube of the number of visits. It seems 
 to be approaching infinity very rapidly. 
 
 180
 
 XIV. 
 
 I DID not depend on Ruth alone for youth- 
 ful spirits. Soon after I came to Highbank, 
 Harry followed me. I was not surprised when 
 he appeared at the hospital. 
 
 " Well, my boy," I asked, " what are you 
 doing in Highbank ? " 
 
 " I 'm doing several things. I 'm looking 
 after you, for one thing." 
 
 " Very kind ; but you can't deceive me by 
 such a statement as that. I know that you are 
 a stickler for proper climaxes. You put the 
 least important thing first. Go on with the list 
 of purposes in Highbank." 
 
 " I am getting a change of air and scene, for 
 another thing, and that 's anti-climax." 
 
 " To be sure. For that very reason I know 
 that you mean more than you seem. What 's 
 the particular change of scene that you need ? 
 181
 
 Is it necessary that Miss Appleton's face shall 
 be in your scenery ? " 
 
 " I rather suspect that I am in need of that 
 particular change of scene." 
 
 " If she is the object lacking in your scenes, 
 you have come to the right place. She comes 
 here to see me nearly every day. She will be 
 here in about an hour." 
 
 "If I were only an egotistic fatalist," he 
 laughed, " I should say that you had been sub- 
 jected to this accident especially for my benefit, 
 so that I should have plenty of chances to see 
 her. Has she been good to you ? " 
 
 " I wonder at your asking. To have her 
 near, to hear her voice, to see her listening 
 while one talks, to watch her smile, is enough 
 to make one call her good to one. Though she 
 does nothing, she is somehow an inspiration." 
 
 " Yes ; that 's why I 'm here, I need a 
 little inspiration." 
 
 " Do you expect to get it ? " 
 
 " I expect to get a certain kind of inspiration 
 every time I look at her. It is worth while 
 going a long way just to watch a beautiful 
 182
 
 woman. Yet there is one kind of inspiration 
 which I fear I won't get from her ; yet I go on 
 hoping." 
 
 " I supposed you found out long ago whether 
 she would give it to you." 
 
 " No ; but I mean to find out pretty 
 quick." 
 
 " If you wait here long enough, you can find 
 out to-day. She will be here soon. I think 
 she would n't be afraid to tell you in my 
 presence." 
 
 He looked up quickly. 
 
 " Do you mean that ? " he asked. 
 
 " I mean that I think so. She has given me 
 no indication, one way or the other." 
 
 " I 'm going to look her up to-day. Where 
 is she likely to be ? " 
 
 " She '11 be here in an hour ; then you can 
 meet her by accident." 
 
 " Thank you, no. I would rather have her 
 know that I met her by intention." 
 
 "Then go to Mr. Thomas's house." 
 
 He spent a little time before my mirror, and 
 then went out. 
 
 183
 
 The day was extremely hot. The wind had 
 blown for nearly a week from the scorching 
 plains of the interior. About three o'clock, 
 almost without warning, a heavy gale reached 
 the town, and brought with it torrents of rain. 
 I gave up the expectation of seeing Ruth. I was 
 glad that she was too sensible to venture out. 
 Then I began to wonder whether it was not 
 Harry, rather than the storm, who kept her 
 away. I began to fear. 
 
 The wind and the rain were over by six 
 o'clock. About seven, much to my surprise, 
 Ruth appeared. 
 
 " I am glad that you did n't do anything so 
 foolish as to venture out this afternoon," I said, 
 by way of greeting. 
 
 " But I did ; I was out in the storm an hour, 
 and I came very near the hospital in the midst 
 of it. I have a new patient." 
 
 "Who is it?" 
 
 " A girl whom I came across yesterday. She 
 is very ill, and she has a young child to care 
 for. I put her in charge of a dear old lady near 
 here." 
 
 184
 
 " Did you know her before ? " 
 
 " By name only. She is the granddaughter 
 of an old friend of my father. She is an out- 
 cast. The man she loved deserted her six 
 months ago. She was never married." 
 
 " How did you happen across her ? " 
 
 " It 's a story that I am ashamed of. She 
 came to me last evening, and told me who she 
 was and what her life had been. She expected 
 me to help her find some work and put her on 
 her feet again. She said she did n't care so much 
 for herself, but the thought of her child drove 
 her to appeal even to a stranger like me. The 
 notion of helping such a girl to her feet rather 
 took my breath away. I knew that all my 
 friends would shun her, and would be inclined 
 to shun me too if I had anything to do with 
 her. I tried to cheer her, but could n't 
 bring myself to make any personal sacrifice for 
 her. I knew of an institution, or ' home,' for 
 such as she, and gave her money to get there. 
 I compromised with my conscience by taking 
 her to the railroad station in our own carriage. 
 I did n't feel called upon to do anything further. 
 185
 
 Oh, it was outrageous ! I treated her like an- 
 other sort of being." 
 
 She paused. Her brow clouded. I had 
 never seen contempt on her face before. 
 
 I knew, nevertheless, that I had heard only 
 a part of the story. I had come to have abso- 
 lute confidence in her. Probably to others my 
 faith would have seemed extravagant; but I 
 might almost say that it was the growth of forty 
 years. It was so great that I suspect that I 
 should have trusted her even though I had 
 seen her doing something contrary to every 
 letter of the moral law. Her intuition was so 
 nearly unerring, her love of all that is best was 
 so strong, that she seemed superior to those laws 
 and restraints that we weaker mortals need, 
 like fences to keep us out of our neighbors' 
 fields. She seemed sufficiently to know the 
 boundaries ; and if she overstepped them, it was 
 only to carry kindness. 
 
 " That 's only the bad part of the story," I 
 said ; " now tell me the good part. There is 
 always a good part to your stories." 
 
 She drove away the cloud at once, as well 
 she might. 186
 
 "Well, I went home and thought it over. 
 I tried to think of myself in her position." 
 
 " Great heaven ! " 
 
 " I admit that I did n't have much success, 
 but the trying did me good. I saw that much 
 of my feeling was due to mere tradition, to out- 
 rageous prejudice. I tried to forget that I had 
 ever heard of such things before, and then asked 
 myself what I ought to think. I did n't ques- 
 tion any longer what I ought to do. 
 
 " I telegraphed to the Home. Though it 
 was long past the time for her to reach there, 
 they had not heard of her. I took the carriage 
 and went down to the railroad station. No 
 ticket had been sold to any one answering her 
 description. About ten o'clock, I found her 
 at the police station, I had needed to give 
 her only fifty cents for getting to the Home. 
 She had been found in the corner of a ware- 
 house porch, with her child in her arms, trying 
 to snatch a little sleep. I cannot blame her for 
 not wanting to go to the institution ; such places 
 are so machine-like. I took her to my uncle's, 
 and put her to bed. She became raving in her 
 187
 
 sleep, and this afternoon I carried her to Mrs. 
 Tamson's. When she gets well, I shall provide 
 for her somehow." 
 
 " And what will the world say ? " 
 
 "It will say what it likes." 
 
 "Doubtless." 
 
 " I know that it 's a frightfully risky thing to 
 meddle in such an affair ; but I can't help it. 
 I won't be bound by a thing so utterly sense- 
 less as the attitude people take in such matters. 
 How can I possibly become contaminated by 
 this girl ? I remember my wish that I could 
 strangle Hilda, in Hawthorne's ' Marble Faun,' 
 for her treatment of Miriam." A look of scorn 
 came into her face. " What is such purity good 
 for?" 
 
 She stirred a little, nervously, in her chair. 
 
 " What is purity ? " she asked suddenly. 
 
 " It is a thing otherwise known by the name 
 of Ruth." 
 
 She smiled gratefully. 
 
 "If that doesn't suit you," I added, "I 
 should rather trust your definition than my 
 own. " 
 
 188
 
 I had long ago got beyond the stage of ab- 
 stract definition of such things ; with me they 
 had become concrete. When I thought of 
 them, I saw the face of Agnes, and latterly of 
 Ruth ; I had almost ceased to distinguish be- 
 tween mother and daughter. 
 
 After several moments of deep thought, she 
 slowly answered her own question : 
 
 " I should say that purity consists in avoid- 
 ing everything that impinges on spiritual good. 
 We ought to regard the word in a very broad 
 sense. We restrict it too much ; we attach it 
 too much to accidents, and too little to the 
 essence of things. There is hardly an action of 
 life that may not be pure or impure. The 
 spiritual must be pure ; the material may be 
 impure. Whatever use we make of the mate- 
 rial side of us at the expense of the spiritual in 
 any action of life is impure. Whatever use 
 we make of the material side of us to benefit 
 the spiritual is pure." 
 
 " I like that. I suspect that much of what 
 the world calls pure would come under your 
 definition as impure, and vice versa ; but I like 
 it so." 
 
 189
 
 " Under my definition the girl across the way 
 may be pure, though of course it is improbable. 
 At any rate, I shall assume that she is, and I 
 shall treat her as if I knew her to be so." 
 
 " Do you know," I said, "if I could have 
 foreseen the advent of this girl just as she has 
 come, I could have foretold your action ? It is 
 just like you, and every bit worthy of you, and 
 you of it." 
 
 She smiled almost joyously. 
 
 A little later Harry came in with the morn- 
 ing's city papers. We fell to talking of the 
 storm. 
 
 " By the way," said he, " have you heard 
 about the man lost on Saddleback Mountain, 
 I believe they call it ? " 
 
 Ruth turned to him breathlessly. 
 
 "No ! " she exclaimed. 
 
 " He is a young scientist, Harris by name, 
 who was trying to find some rare specimens of 
 rock on the mountain. He went off this morn- 
 ing with his dog. At six o'clock the dog came 
 whining home with blood on his hair, but with- 
 out any visible bruise." 
 190
 
 Ruth's face was white. She had risen while 
 he talked. Her hand trembled on the back of 
 her chair. 
 
 " Has anything been done ? " she asked. 
 
 "There is talk of getting up a searching 
 party." 
 
 " Are you going ? " Her hand had become 
 firm and her voice was clear, but she was still 
 very white. 
 
 "I don't know; possibly." 
 
 " Will you go with me ? " 
 
 " With you ? Do you mean to go? " 
 
 " Yes ; will you go ? " 
 
 << Gladly." 
 
 " Do they know where he went ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 "Apparently not." 
 
 " Then I shall lead the way. Please go 
 out and get eight or ten men to help me. I 
 shall be ready in half an hour. Come to my 
 uncle's house at that time. Can I count on 
 you ? " 
 
 " Assuredly." 
 
 Without another word she was gone. 
 191
 
 Harry sank back in his chair as if the world 
 had suddenly changed and he dreaded to face 
 the new one. 
 
 " What does it mean ? " he asked. 
 
 " I think it pretty evident what it means. 
 She knows this man Harris, and cares very much 
 about his safety. You haven't spoken to her 
 yet, I take it." 
 
 He shook his head wearily. 
 
 " I don't know what to do now," he said 
 musingly. 
 
 " I should think you had enough to do. If 
 you don't hurry, you '11 keep her waiting." 
 
 An hour before, he would have given any- 
 thing for the privilege of rendering her such a 
 service. Now that he saw why the service was 
 asked, his enthusiasm was gone. He went about 
 his task with a fallen face. I was left alone to 
 ponder and to wait for news. 
 
 Soon after they had gone the storm returned. 
 The rain fell steadily, and the wind howled with 
 hardly an intermission. 
 
 About midnight, under the plea of urgency, 
 Harry was admitted to my room. 
 192
 
 " Well, she found him," were his first words. 
 
 "Tell me all about it, everything." 
 
 "I haven't had much time yet to think it 
 over." 
 
 " I don't care to know what you think of it. 
 I want facts." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose so. Well, I went out and 
 found a group of men talking of getting up a 
 searching party. I told them what Miss Apple- 
 ton wanted to do, and said that she seemed to 
 think she knew where to look for him. Most 
 of them scouted the idea of a woman's leading 
 such a party, especially at night. But one of 
 them spoke up and said that he knew her, and 
 guessed she could do anything she undertook. 
 Another said he did n't know her, but knew 
 enough about her to be willing to trust her com- 
 mon-sense. None of them had any notion where 
 to look for the lost man, he said ; and as Miss 
 Appleton did, he was willing to try her. It re- 
 sulted that they all agreed to follow her. There 
 were ten of us. 
 
 " By this time it had begun to rain again, and 
 the wind was springing up. As it grew worse, 
 193
 
 a few were inclined to back out, but the others 
 hooted them. It was pitch dark when we gath- 
 ered before Mr. Thomas's house, each with his 
 lantern. In a few moments, a slight young man, 
 with a big slouch hat drawn down to his ears, 
 came out and asked if we were ready. The 
 voice told the whole story. It was Miss Apple- 
 ton. She had borrowed her uncle's shooting-suit 
 throughout, even to the big corduroy trousers and 
 top boots. 
 
 "In a very few words she told us what she 
 intended to do. She told us where she thought 
 the young man would be found, and asked us to 
 correct her if she got upon the wrong track in 
 trying to find the place. We were soon at the 
 foot of the mountain. Then she took a com- 
 pass in her hand, got her bearings carefully, and 
 started into the woods straight away from the 
 beaten paths. For half an hour we plodded on, 
 up over fallen tree-trunks, wet and slippery, 
 down into ravines, under overhanging rocks, 
 through dense bushes whose leaves emptied small 
 showers of water upon us. She kept close watch 
 of the compass, and would not swerve from the 
 194
 
 straight line. She apologized for taking so hard 
 a path by saying that in the pitch darkness it 
 did n't pay to get off the correct line at all, for, 
 if we did, it would be too hard to find the exact 
 spot at the end. 
 
 "At last she came to a stop. She told two 
 men to go to the right about five rods, and look 
 for a high cliff. She told another two to go to 
 the right five rods beyond the first two, and look 
 out for the cliff. She sent four more to the left 
 in the same way. All were to walk along par- 
 allel to our main line of march, measuring the 
 distance, when in doubt, by calling every few 
 minutes. Pretty soon a man on the left shouted 
 that he saw the cliff. We all joined him. Miss 
 Appleton then told us that we were near the 
 most dangerous spot on the mountain. Beyond 
 that cliff was a ravine with loose rock overhang- 
 ing it. A false step, or a heavy jar, or a fierce 
 wind and rain might precipitate tons of rock upon 
 our heads. The lost man had gone into that 
 ravine in the afternoon. The storm had prob- 
 ably thrown down some of the rock upon him. 
 More was likely to fall at any moment. She 
 "95
 
 said she was going in there after him. She would 
 not ask any of us to follow, because of the dan- 
 ger; but she wished those who did not go to 
 remain just where they were. Without another 
 word she started. 
 
 " Five of us followed. Then I saw why she 
 had adopted man's dress. A woman's clothes 
 would have been stripped from her in ten 
 minutes. The ravine was full of huge stones, 
 ragged, as they had been chipped off by the 
 frost, and yet covered with water-soaked moss. 
 We were continually slipping and falling upon 
 these sharp points, so that our trousers were torn 
 and our legs bruised. To make it worse, many 
 dead pines had fallen into the ravine, across 
 the rocks. The sharp stumps of their broken- 
 off branches caught our feet and clothing, and 
 tripped us unmercifully. A swift stream ran 
 through the ravine. This was high and foam- 
 ing. We often fell into it. On both sides of 
 us, cliffs rose between fifty and a hundred feet, 
 black and dripping. The rain fell in masses. 
 The wind came in shrieking gusts. We would 
 get well braced against it, and then it would 
 196
 
 suddenly stop, or shift, so suddenly sometimes 
 that we lost balance. I never knew before what 
 real wildness was like. 
 
 " Miss Appleton fell often, but was always up 
 again with a spring. Her corduroys and heavy 
 long boots withstood the assaults on them. She 
 kept the lead. She peered into every nook and 
 corner. Twice heavy rocks fell from a hun- 
 dred feet above our heads and crashed down near 
 us. We could hear the tearing of limbs above, 
 the falling gravel, and then the crash near by. 
 A small shower of dead trees followed. The 
 ravine was so narrow that whatever fell was sure 
 to fall in our path, if not before or behind us, 
 then upon us. For once I have tasted danger. 
 Miss Appleton's face was always white ; but 
 she stopped only for a moment even when those 
 crashes came. 
 
 " It was she who found him at last. He was 
 lying unconscious in a hollow between two large 
 rocks. One leg was sticking up along one of 
 the rocks, and a small pine, evidently fallen from 
 above, was lying across it. His head was bleed- 
 ing. She rushed toward him, and tried alone 
 197
 
 to lift the tree. We finally got him free, and 
 carried him out to where we had left the other 
 men. While we made a litter, she held his 
 head close against her breast, bandaging the bleed- 
 ing wound and putting brandy between his lips. 
 Before we were ready to start, he was conscious. 
 I never saw a man look so happy as he did 
 when he realized where he was." 
 
 For several moments neither of us spoke ; but 
 I suspect that our thoughts were running along 
 different lines. 
 
 "I believe I learned to-night what envy is," 
 was Harry's final comment. 
 
 I must confess that I was not altogether free 
 from it myself. 
 
 I suspect that even without it I should not 
 have slept much that night. 
 
 198
 
 XV. 
 
 THE doctors have at last told me what I 
 have been so long prepared to know. It 
 is strange that though a dozen years ago I should 
 have been hardly moved by their words, now, 
 at over seventy, I cannot think them other than 
 cruel. Then I had nothing special to live for, 
 and it would have been easy to die. Indeed, 
 after Agnes had been lost to my outer life, I 
 used to think that Fate had decreed the loss in 
 order that I might be free from earthly ties, 
 might value my life cheaply. Of late I seem 
 to have lost that freedom, though, to be sure, 
 it is but a trifling fragment of a life that I have to 
 give or save. Ruth does not ask me to save it, 
 doubtless she does not want anything of it ; 
 but I would save it in the hope that it may 
 serve her sometime. The doctors tell me that 
 the injuries of the heart have proved too serious 
 to overcome. Any day it may give up its task. 
 199
 
 How can I wonder, after seventy years of faith- 
 ful beating without a moment's rest ! 
 
 I think that I shall tell Ruth and Harry to- 
 day what the doctors have told me. It is 
 strange that they happened to tell me so soon 
 only the second day after the exploit on 
 Saddleback. So much is crowded into these 
 days ! I wonder how much Ruth will care. 
 She may not care at all for myself, but she will 
 care because of my love for her. Her heart is 
 so tender that it is touched by every other heart 
 that it knows. 
 
 Harry did not come to see me yesterday. 
 This morning he was looking disconsolate. 
 
 "How did you survive your adventure?" I 
 asked. 
 
 " One part of it, the physical, I survived 
 beautifully ; the other part, as you can imagine, 
 I survived not so well. Her treatment of the 
 man she rescued broke me all up." 
 
 " Still, I suppose you realize that you can't 
 complain." 
 
 " Certainly. She never encouraged me in 
 the slightest degree. I fell in love with her
 
 almost at first sight, in Madawanipee ; and long 
 before you knew that I knew her she had put 
 a quietus upon me several times, but I did n't 
 know enough to know when I was beaten. I 
 wish now that I had never seen the girl." 
 
 "I don't pity you a bit." 
 
 " I did n't suppose you did. You don't 
 think me worthy of her." 
 
 " That is true ; but I might pity you, never- 
 theless. When you say that you wish that you 
 had never seen her, it is evident that you have 
 already lost your love for her. A man does n't 
 need pity for having lost a girl whom he does n't 
 love." 
 
 " Don't, for Heaven's sake, talk that way ! 
 Can't a man regret his love for a girl ? " 
 
 " Not unless something is wrong either with 
 him or with her." 
 
 "I wish something would go wrong with 
 the other fellow," he said, with forced gayety. 
 "I 'd like to have him out of my way." 
 
 " It 's too late. What happened night before 
 last showed that." 
 
 " I 'm not going to give up. I 'm going to 
 201
 
 stay here and see her this morning. I see her 
 on a little different footing here than elsewhere, 
 and I 'm going to take advantage of it." 
 
 "Do you like to win with a handicap in 
 your favor ? I should think that you would be 
 afraid of the time when she found out that the 
 race was not fair at the start. But it makes no 
 difference ; for I can't let you stay this morn- 
 ing. I want particularly to see her alone. I 
 wanted to talk with you on another matter ; 
 but you are in no mood for it, or I 'm not." 
 
 It was with rather bad grace that he went 
 away a few minutes later. 
 
 When Ruth came in, at eleven o'clock, she 
 was even more cheerful than usual. It seems 
 as if no shadow ever comes into her life ; she 
 is always cheerfulness itself. Perhaps it is be- 
 cause she lives deeply, and so knows the reality 
 of the beauty of life. 
 
 " Your nephew thinks you very cruel this 
 morning," she said, smiling. 
 
 " Have you seen him ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I met him half an hour or more ago."
 
 " Do you think me cruel ? I will make you 
 my judge." 
 
 "I prefer to have no part in a judgment 
 between you. Still," she added, " it does 
 seem a bit hard to send away one who is ready 
 to do anything that he can for you." 
 
 " Did you suppose that his eagerness to stay 
 was due to eagerness to help me? " 
 
 " Why, of course." 
 
 This answer was accompanied by a smile 
 which I confess is beyond my depth. I am so 
 unready to interpret a woman's moods. 
 
 " Then you are not fit to judge between us," 
 I said. " You would not see half the case." 
 
 "Justice is blind, they say." 
 
 " Blind to participants, not to facts." 
 
 " I must confess that I should be much more 
 likely to be blind to facts. I should give judg- 
 ment in your favor off-hand." 
 
 " How good you are to me ! But was n't 
 any part of your judgment in Harry's favor ? " 
 
 " No ; I could n't stop. He wanted me to 
 go to walk with him, or boating or riding or 
 anything, he said ; but I told him I was in a 
 203
 
 hurry to see you, and could n't think of staying 
 away so long." 
 
 She walked toward the window, picking up 
 on the way a small satchel which she had laid 
 on the table. She sat on the window-sill, and 
 looked out in the direction of her uncle's house. 
 After a long silence, which I dreaded to break 
 with the news which I intended to tell her, she 
 spoke very quietly : 
 
 "I can see from here the house where we 
 first met. I remember that night very well. I 
 was reading when you came in. You spoke to 
 me very kindly ; and something you said, or 
 the way you said it, impressed me deeply. 
 Strangely, I don't remember what it was. The 
 story seemed very real to me ; but what you 
 said made me look more carefully, young though 
 I was, for the truly human element in every- 
 thing I read. Partly through your suggestion, I 
 came in time to see that the substance of human 
 life is feeling, that what we may not feel 
 through our own experience we may feel 
 through sympathy in the experience of others. 
 My life has been richer since I appreciated that 
 fact." zo4
 
 She paused a moment. 
 
 " You helped me again in Madawanipee. 
 You showed your confidence in me. You had 
 faith in my power to do good in the world, 
 and that faith carried me through much which 
 otherwise I fear that I should not have done. 
 It helps me yet. I want to thank you for it all." 
 
 She was looking out upon the street again. 
 It was several moments before she continued. 
 
 " To-day I have made, I think, a new dis- 
 covery. You have told me something about my 
 mother. But first, tell me, was there in High- 
 bank any one else by the name of Alfred 
 Robertson ? " 
 
 "No; I was the only one." 
 
 I felt that she had discovered my secret. I 
 had tried to avoid disclosing it, for it might seem 
 to make a kind of claim upon her friendship. 
 I regretted that she had even found it for her- 
 self. She might find sadness in it. 
 
 " And you loved my mother ? " she asked 
 slowly. 
 
 " Yes. But don't say loved, as if it were 
 past and gone. I never ceased to love her." 
 205
 
 She turned about and took a chair by my 
 side. I put out a faded, wrinkled hand, and 
 laid it open in her lap. She took it in both 
 her strong, young ones. She moved as if to 
 speak, but I interrupted her. 
 
 " You are your mother come back to earth 
 again. Do you wonder that I have loved you 
 so ? " 
 
 She looked straight into my eyes without 
 flushing or moving a muscle. I knew then that 
 my faith in her had been justified. She had 
 known my love, had taken it in the spirit of 
 the offering, and had felt honored by it. 
 
 " I wish I were as worthy of it as my 
 mother," was all she said. 
 
 Presently she took from the satchel an old, 
 yellow letter, tender with age, and handed it 
 to me. 
 
 " My mother usually destroyed her letters," 
 she said. 
 
 206 
 
 >.
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 HERE the manuscript ended. The rest 
 of Mr. Robertson's story I must tell from 
 what I myself saw. He had admitted me to his 
 adopted family, as he called it, on almost equal 
 terms with Miss Appleton and his nephew. 
 
 One afternoon, in early fall, as I was ap- 
 proaching his room in my invalid's chair, Miss 
 Appleton came out with frightened, sorrow- 
 burdened face. She went down the corridor 
 in the opposite direction without seeing me. 
 When I entered the room, Mr. Robertson looked 
 up painfully. 
 
 " Good-morning," he said ; " she will be 
 back in a moment. Won't you sit down and 
 wait ? " 
 
 He settled back into an easier position and 
 closed his eyes, as if no further care was upon 
 him. This was a new kind of reception. He 
 had always been very cordial, heretofore. I sat 
 
 down to await developments. In a few mo- 
 207 

 
 ments he opened his eyes, looked about as if just 
 waking, and started up in a business-like way. 
 
 '* Strange that she doesn't come! I shall 
 have to ring for her, and not keep you waiting." 
 
 "Whom do you mean ? " I asked. 
 
 " Miss Appleton." 
 
 "I didn't come to see Miss Appleton. I 
 came to see you." 
 
 " Oh, certainly, certainly ! " he answered 
 wearily. " Pardon me ! What can I do for 
 you this morning? " 
 
 " Nothing in particular, thank you. I thought 
 perhaps I could read to you, or do anything 
 that you would like." 
 
 " You are very kind, but my secretary does 
 everything. Good- morning ! " 
 
 His mind was evidently wandering. He did 
 not know me. It would be hardly safe to 
 leave him alone, especially if, as was probable, 
 there had been a change for the worse which 
 the nurse had not seen. He tossed about ner- 
 vously. At last he opened his eyes again, and 
 recognized me. He held out his hand feebly, 
 but with his usual cordiality of purpose. 
 208
 
 After a few moments of conversation such 
 as was usual with us, he took a fragment 
 of an old yellow letter which lay beside him, 
 and asked me to read it aloud. It read as 
 follows : 
 
 "I hope I am the first one to send you the 
 news about Alfred Robertson. It ought to make 
 you very glad. The mystery of the forgery has 
 been cleared. You were justified in your con- 
 fidence in his integrity. The pity is that you 
 didn't dare to show it to him. The real cul- 
 prit has confessed at last, after being caught in 
 other forgeries in the West. You remember the 
 forgery was a large check on a Western bank. 
 I don't quite understand the process, but papa 
 says Mr. Robertson, being a bank director, did 
 not have to put his name on checks which he 
 took to his bank to have cashed. It was said 
 in the trial that he had dared to forge this check 
 because he did n't think it could ever be traced 
 back to him. Now it turns out that his secre- 
 tary forged the check, and gave it to Mr. Robert- 
 son to cash. Then, afterward, the secretary 
 got him to cash the genuine check also. This 
 209
 
 made the cash drawer 'over,' papa says, and 
 the fellow put the amount of the ' over ' into 
 his own pocket. I don't believe I quite under- 
 stand it, but I hope you will. You remember 
 the sheet of practice paper that was brought into 
 court. Every one said it was Mr. Robertson's 
 practice work to forge the other name. Now 
 it turns out that that rascally clerk had learned 
 to copy Mr. Robertson's name exactly, and tried 
 to change his writing gradually from one to the 
 other. The signatures were a good deal alike. 
 That was the evidence that counted most against 
 Mr. Robertson. I suppose it was natural in 
 face of it to believe the secretary's word sooner 
 than his, in spite of his declaring his innocence. 
 The rascal seems to have worked out his scheme 
 very cleverly. 
 
 " And now, dear, I am going to step aside 
 from 'minding my own business.' Will you 
 be very angry if I mind yours a bit ? Angie 
 and Carrie and I were very sure that Mr. 
 Robertson was in love with you, though he tried 
 to hide it from everybody except you. Please 
 don't be angry; but we thought you would
 
 some day, very soon, care for him. Then came 
 that awful scandal about the forgery, and his 
 conviction. You believed in him all the time, 
 but I suppose you had n't come to love him 
 quite. Then after his pardon he was afraid to 
 carry the name of jail-bird to you, and he went 
 away. I believe that even now, after the truth 
 has come out, he would hardly like to make the 
 first advance. He is so sensitive ; and not 
 everybody will have heard the truth. Why 
 don't you write to him, and congratulate him 
 on the triumph of the truth at last, and all that 
 sort of thing ? I suggest this for both your 
 sakes." 
 
 Accompanying the letter was another, dated 
 three days later, congratulating Miss Wentworth 
 on her engagement. In it was this sentence : 
 " It was strange that I happened to write to you 
 about Alfred Robertson while the letter announc- 
 ing your engagement to Mr. Appleton was on 
 the way to me." 
 
 When I finished reading, Mr. Robertson's 
 eyes were apparently fixed on the steeple of the 
 Highbank First Church. 

 
 "I am glad she is n't going to marry him," 
 he said, after a long silence. 
 
 I thought his mind was again wandering. 
 He seemed to be thinking of the engagement 
 noted in the letter of thirty years ago. 
 
 " Who ? " I asked, hoping to recall him to 
 his right mind. 
 
 " Ruth. Harry does n't deserve her." 
 
 He lay silent, as if in revery. Soon he began 
 to talk again. I doubted, however, whether he 
 remembered my presence ; he appeared to be 
 talking to himself. 
 
 "He does n't understand her," he said. 
 " He lives in the world of sense ; she lives in 
 the world of ideas. He must not have her. I 
 hope this man she loves is worthy of her." 
 
 Suddenly, after a few moments, in which an 
 anxious look had played on his face, he smiled 
 brightly, and spoke again. I moved my chair 
 to remind him of my presence, but he did not 
 seem to care. 
 
 " Strange how I forget myself! Here I have 
 been worrying over Ruth's future. I have 
 feared that she would make a mistake ; but that
 
 is as bad as Harry's fear the other night. I 
 scolded him for not having confidence in her. 
 How much more should I scold myself now ! 
 She knows human nature. Other women may 
 make mistakes ; she will not. If he is not 
 worthy of her, she will find it out ; and she 
 will find it out in time. So instead of worry- 
 ing, I rejoice. What do you think ? " he asked, 
 turning to me. 
 
 " I should say that you have every reason for 
 rejoicing in her rather than worrying about her." 
 
 He lay still, with his eyes closed, for a long 
 time. He seemed to be breathing regularly ; 
 and, as he had wandered but slightly, I saw no 
 necessity for summoning the nurses. I was not 
 familiar with sickness. 
 
 While glancing over a book which Miss 
 Appleton had left behind, I heard his voice 
 again. His eyes were open, but he seemed to 
 be looking into the distance. 
 
 " Yes ; she kissed me," he murmured. 
 
 I stirred, and he looked up. 
 
 " Do you understand ? " he asked, as if he 
 were trying to explain something. 
 213
 
 " Yes," I answered, though I did not under- 
 stand anything but the words. 
 
 "I hope you quite understand," he con- 
 tinued. "I fear you don't. She kissed me. 
 Understand?" 
 
 I disliked to question, but I feared to miss 
 any meaning which he wished me to get. 
 
 " Who kissed you ? " I asked. 
 
 "Agnes, my Agnes, just now." 
 
 He turned again, and then suddenly put his 
 hand to his forehead, and pushed back the hair. 
 The natural light came back to his eyes. 
 
 " What did you say ? " he asked. 
 
 "I didn't speak." 
 
 " Was it I who spoke last ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Oh, I know ; I said that Agnes just kissed 
 me. I was dreaming. It was Ruth who kissed 
 me, just before she went out, when I told her 
 that the doctor said that my time was short." 
 
 When he fell asleep again, I went to call 
 a nurse. Miss Appleton returned with me. 
 He was breathing heavily when we reached 
 him. As we watched, his face brightened, and
 
 we caught a few words, uttered slowly, but 
 cheerfully : 
 
 " Ah, Life, you did not wholly cheat me 
 after all. At the very end the kiss of a 
 woman whom I loved." 
 
 He never spoke again. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BV JOHN WILSON AND SON CAMBRIDGE


 
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