EDUCATION IIBR. 
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 Education 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
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THE BIRDS CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 
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 THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square i2mo 
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 A SUMMER IN A CAfiON. A California Story. Illus 
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 TIMOTHY S QUEST. A Story for Anybody, Young or 
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 A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP, AND PENELOPE S 
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 POLLY OLIVER S PROBLEM. Illustrated. i6mo,$i.oo. 
 
 THE SAME. In Riverside School Library. 60 cents net 
 
 THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. i6mo, $1.00. 
 
 MARM LISA. i6mo. 
 
 NINE LOVE SONGS, AND A CAROL. Music by Mrs. 
 WIGGIN. Words by HERRICK, SILL, and others. Quarto. 
 
 33? JHr*. Muffin anU ;fflta$ 
 
 TH-E STORY HOUR. A Book for the Home and Kin- 
 
 dergarten. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. 
 
 Illustrated. i6mo, fi.oo. 
 CHILDREN S RIGHTS. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. 
 
 SMITH. A Book of Nursery Logic. i6m<>, #1.00. 
 THE REPUBLIC OF CHILDHOOD. By Mrs. WIGGIN 
 
 and NORA A. SMITH. In three volumes, each, i6mo, 
 
 $1.00. 
 
 I. FROEBEL S GIFTS. 
 II. FROEBEL S OCCUPATIONS. 
 III. KINDERGARTEN PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE. 
 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY, 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK. 
 
MARM LISA 
 
 BY 
 
 KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN 
 
 The eternal-womanly 
 Ever leadeth us on. 
 GOETHE S Faust. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 (fa Rtoersibe ]dit, Cambrib0e 
 
Copyright, 1896, 
 BY KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 GIFT 
 
 The Riverside, Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Co. 
 
EDUC. 
 
 UBRARY 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 I. EDEN PLACE 1 
 
 II. MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN . . . 12 
 
 III. A FAMILY POLYGON 23 
 
 IV. MARM LISA is TRANSPLANTED . . 37 
 V. How THE NEW PLANT GREW ... 47 
 
 VI. FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY 61 
 
 VII. THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR . , 70 
 VIII. THE YOUNG MINISTER S PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 
 OBSERVATIONS 84 
 
 IX. MARM LISA S QUEST . . . . .96 
 
 X. THE TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS . 107 
 
 XI. RHODA FREES HER MIND . . . .118 
 
 XII. FLOTSAM AND JETSAM .... 132 
 
 XIII. LEAVES FROM MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN 148 
 
 XIV. MORE LEAVES 161 
 
 XV. "THE FEAST o THE BABE" ... 174 
 
 XVI. CLEANSING FIRES . . . 183 
 
 280 
 
MARM LISA. 
 I. 
 
 EDEN PLACE. 
 
 EDEN PLACE was a short street running 
 at right angles with Eden Square, a most 
 unattractive and infertile triangle of ground 
 in a most unattractive but respectable quar 
 ter of a large city. It was called a square 
 not so much, probably, because it was trian 
 gular in shape as because it was hardly large 
 enough to be designated as a park. As to 
 its being called "Eden," the origin of that 
 qualifying word is enveloped in mystery; 
 but it is likely that the enthusiastic persons 
 who projected it saw visions and dreamed 
 dreams of green benches under umbrageous 
 trees, of a green wire fence, ever green, and 
 of plots of blossoming flowers filling the 
 grateful air with unaccustomed fragrance. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the trees had always 
 been stunted and stubby, the plants had 
 
^ MARM LISA. 
 
 never been tended, and all the paint had 
 been worn off the benches by successive 
 groups of workingmen out of work. As for 
 the wire fence, it had been much used as 
 a means of ingress and egress by the chil 
 dren of the neighborhood, who preferred it 
 to any of the gateways, which they consid 
 ered hopelessly unimaginative and common 
 place, offering no resistance to the budding 
 man of valor or woman of ambition. 
 
 Eden Place was frequented mostly by the 
 children, who found it an admirable spot to 
 squabble, to fight, and to dig up the hapless 
 earth, and after them, by persons out of 
 suits with fortune. These (generally men) 
 adorned the shabby benches at all times, 
 sleeping, smoking, reading newspapers, or 
 tracing uncertain patterns in the gravel 
 with a stick, patterns as uncertain and 
 aimless as themselves. There were fewer 
 women, because the unemployed woman of 
 this class has an old-fashioned habit, or in 
 stinct, of seeking work by direct assault; 
 the method of the male being rather to sit 
 on a bench and discuss the obstacles, the 
 injustices, and the unendurable insults 
 heaped by a plutocratic government in the 
 path of the honest son of toil. 
 
EDEN PLACE. 3 
 
 The corner house of Eden Place was a 
 little larger than its neighbors in the same 
 row. Its side was flanked by a sand-lot, 
 and a bay window, with four central panes 
 of blue glass, was the most conspicuous fea 
 ture of its architecture. In the small front 
 yard was a microscopic flower-bed; there 
 were no flowers in it, but the stake that 
 held up a stout plant in the middle was sur 
 mounted by a neat wooden sign bearing the 
 inscription, "No Smoking on these Pre 
 mises." The warning seemed superfluous, as 
 no man standing in the garden could have 
 put his pipe in his mouth without grazing 
 either the fence or the house, but the owner 
 of the "premises" possibly wished to warn 
 the visitor at the very threshold. 
 
 All the occupied houses in Eden Place 
 were cheerful and hospitable in their ap 
 pearance, and were marked by an air of 
 liveliness and good-fellowship. Bed linen 
 hung freely from all the windows, for there 
 was no hard-and-fast law about making up 
 beds at any special hour, though a remnant 
 of superstition still existed that it was a 
 good thing to make up a bed before you 
 slept in it. There were more women on 
 their respective front steps, and fewer in 
 
HARM LISA. 
 
 their respective kitchens, in Eden Place 
 than in almost any other locality in the city. 
 That they lived for the most part in close 
 and friendly relations could be seen from 
 the condition of the fences between the 
 front yards, whose upper rails fairly sagged 
 with the weight of gossip. 
 
 One woman, living in the middle of the 
 row, evidently possessed somewhat different 
 views,. for she had planted vines on each of 
 her division fences, rented her parlor to a 
 lodger who only slept there, kept all her 
 front curtains drawn, and stayed in the 
 back of her house. Such retribution as 
 could legally be wreaked upon this offensive 
 and exclusive person was daily administered 
 by her two neighbors, who stood in their 
 doors on either side and conversed across her 
 house and garden with much freedom and 
 exuberance. They had begged the landlord 
 to induce her to take up her abode else 
 where, but as she was the only tenant who 
 paid her rent regularly he refused to part 
 with her. 
 
 Any one passing the "No Smoking " sign 
 and entering the front door of Mrs. Grubb s 
 house, on the corner, would have turned off 
 the narrow uncarpeted hall into the princi- 
 
EDEN PLACE. 5 
 
 pal room, and if he were an observing per 
 son would have been somewhat puzzled by 
 its appearance. There were seven or eight 
 long benches on one side, yet it had not the 
 slightest resemblance to a schoolroom. The 
 walls were adorned with a variety of inter 
 esting objects. There was a chart showing 
 a mammoth human hand, the palm marked 
 with myriads of purple lines. There were 
 two others displaying respectively the inte 
 rior of the human being in the pink-and- 
 white purity of total abstinence, and the 
 same interior after years of intemperance 
 had done their fatal work; a most valuable 
 chart this last, and one that had quenched 
 the thirst of many a man. 
 
 The words "Poverty Must Go" were 
 wrought in evergreen letters over the bay 
 window, and various texts were printed 
 in red and black and tacked to the wall 
 in prominent places. These were such 
 as: 
 
 " To be a Flesh- Eater is to be a Shedder 
 of Blood and a Destroyer of God s Inno 
 cent Creatures." 
 
 "Now that Man has Begun to Ascend in 
 the Scale of Being let Woman Reach Down 
 a Strong, Tender Hand and Aid him in his 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 Struggle for Moral and Spiritual Eleva 
 tion." 
 
 "Let the Pleasure Field be as Large 
 as Possible. Pains and Fears Lessen 
 Growth." 
 
 "I Believe that to Burden, to Bond, to 
 Tax, to Tribute, to Impoverish, to Grind, 
 to Pillage, to Oppress, to Afflict, to Plun 
 der, to Vampire the Life Laboring to Create 
 Wealth, is the Unpardonable Sin." 
 
 Over the mantel-shelf was a seaweed pic 
 ture in a frame of shells, bearing the in 
 scription, "Unity Hall. Meeting - Place 
 of the Order of Present Perfection." On 
 a table, waiting to be hung in place, was 
 an impressive sort of map about four feet 
 square. This, like many of the other orna 
 ments in the room, was a trifle puzzling, 
 and seemed at first, from its plenitude of 
 colored spots, to be some species of moral 
 propaganda in a state of violent eruption. 
 It proved, however, on closer study, to be 
 an ingenious pictorial representation of the 
 fifty largest cities of the world, with the 
 successful establishment of various regener 
 ating ideas indicated by colored disks of 
 paper neatly pasted on the surface. The 
 key in the right-hand corner read : 
 
EDEN PLACE. 7 
 
 Temperance .... Blue. 
 
 Single Tax .... Green. 
 
 Cremation .... Orange. 
 
 Abolition of War . . Red. 
 
 Vegetarianism . . . Purple. 
 
 Hypnotism .... Yellow. 
 
 Dress Reform . . . Black. 
 
 Social Purity. . . . Blush Rose. 
 
 Theosophy .... Silver. 
 
 Religious Liberty . . Magenta. 
 
 Emancipation of ) ( Crushed Straw - 
 
 Woman i ( berry. 
 
 A small gold star, added to the colored 
 spot, hovering over the name of a city, was 
 explained, in the lower left-hand corner, as 
 denoting the fact that the Eldorado face 
 powder was exclusively used there, and that 
 S. Cora Grubb was the sole agent for the 
 Pacific coast. 
 
 Joseph s coat faded into insignificance in 
 comparison with the city of Mrs. Grubb s 
 present residence, which appeared to be a 
 perfect hot-bed of world-saving ideas, and 
 was surrounded by such a halo of spots that 
 it would have struck the tmregenerate ob 
 server as an undesirable place in which to 
 live, unless one wished to be broken daily 
 on the rack of social progress. 
 
8 
 
 MARM LISA. 
 
 This front room was Mrs. Grubb s only 
 parlor. The seven benches were rather in 
 the way and seemingly unnecessary, as the 
 lady attended meetings morning, noon, and 
 night in halls hired for that purpose; but 
 they gave her a feeling of security, as, in 
 case one of her less flourishing societies 
 should be ejected from its hall, or in case 
 she should wake up in the middle of the 
 night and want to hold a meeting of any 
 club when all the halls were closed, the 
 benches in the parlor would make it possible 
 without a moment s loss of time. 
 
 The room connecting with this was the 
 family banquet-hall and kitchen in one, and 
 as Mrs. Grubb s opinions on diet were ex 
 tremely advanced, it amply served the pur 
 pose. 
 
 There were three bedrooms upstairs, and 
 the whole establishment was rather untidy 
 in its aspect; but, though it might have 
 been much cleaner, it is only fair to say 
 that it might also have been much dirtier. 
 
 The house was deserted. The only sound 
 came from the back yard, and it was the 
 echo of children s voices. It was not at all 
 a merry prattle ; it was a steady uproar in 
 terrupted by occasional shrieks and yells, a 
 
EDEN PLACE. 9 
 
 clatter of falling blocks, beatings of a tin 
 pan, a scramble of feet, a tussle, with con 
 fusion of blows and thumps, and then gen 
 erally a temporary lull in the proceedings, 
 evidently brought about by some sort of 
 outside interference. If you had pushed 
 open the wire door, you would have seen 
 two children of four or five years disporting 
 themselves in a sand-heap. One was a boy 
 and one a girl, and though they were not at 
 all alike in feature or complexion, there 
 was an astonishing resemblance between 
 them in size, in figure, in voice, in expres 
 sion, and, apparently, in disposition. 
 
 Sitting on a bench, watching them as a 
 dog watches its master s coat, was a girl of 
 some undeterminable age, perhaps of ten 
 or twelve years. She wore a shapeless stout 
 gingham garment, her shoes were many 
 sizes too large for her, and the laces were 
 dangling. Her nerveless hands and long- 
 arms sprawled in her lap as if they had no 
 volition in them. She sat with her head 
 slightly drooping, her knees apart, and her 
 feet aimlessly turned in. Her lower lip 
 hung a little, but only a little, loosely. She 
 looked neither at earth nor at sky, but 
 straight at the two belligerents, with whose 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 bloodthirsty play she was obliged to inter 
 
 fere at intervals. She held in her lap a 
 
 doll made of a roll of brown paper, with a 
 
 waist and a neck indicated by gingham 
 
 strings. Pieces of raveled rope were pinned 
 
 on the head part, but there was no other 
 
 attempt to assist the imagination. She 
 
 raised her dull eyes ; they seemed to hold in 
 
 their depths a knowledge of aloofness from 
 
 the happier world, and their dumb sorrow 
 
 pierced your very heart, while it gave you 
 
 an irresistible sense of aversion. She 
 
 smiled, but the smile only gave you a new 
 
 thrill; it was vacant and had no joy in it, 
 
 rather an uncommunicable grief. As she 
 
 sat there with her battered doll, she was to 
 
 the superficial eye repulsive, but to the eye 
 
 that pierces externals she was almost majes 
 
 tic in her mysterious loneliness and separa 
 
 tion. 
 
 The steam-whistle of a factory near by 
 blew a long note for twelve o clock, and she 
 rose from her bench, took the children by 
 the hand, and dragged them, kindly but 
 firmly, up the steps into the kitchen. She 
 laid her doll under a towel, but, with a fur 
 tive look at the boy, rolled it in a cloth and 
 tucked it under her skirt at the waist-line. 
 
EDEN PLACE. 11 
 
 She then washed the children s faces, tied 
 on their calico bibs, and pushed them up to 
 the pine table. While they battered the 
 board and each other with spoons and tin 
 mugs, she went automatically to a closet, 
 took a dish of cold porridge and turned it 
 into three bowls, poured milk over it, spread 
 three thick slices of wheat bread with 
 molasses from a cup, and sat down at the 
 table. After the simple repast was over, 
 she led the still reluctant (constitutionally 
 reluctant) twins up the staircase and put 
 them, shrieking, on a bed; left the room, 
 locking the door behind her in a perfunc 
 tory sort of way as if it were an every-day 
 occurrence, crouched down on the rug out 
 side, and, leaning her head back against 
 the wall, took her doll from under her skirt, 
 for this was her playtime, her hour of ease. 
 Poor little "Marm Lisa," as the neigh 
 bors called her ! She had all the sorrows 
 and cares of maternity with none of its com 
 pensating joys. 
 
II. 
 
 " Mistress Mary, quite contrary, 
 
 How does your garden grow ? 
 
 With silver bells and cockle shells, 
 
 And little maids all in a row/ " 
 
 MISTKESS MARY S Garden did grow 
 remarkably well, and it was wonderfully 
 attractive considering the fact that few 
 persons beside herself saw anything but 
 weeds in it. 
 
 She did not look in the least a "con 
 trary " Miss Mary, as she stood on a certain 
 flight of broad wooden steps on a sunshiny 
 morning; yet she was undoubtedly having 
 her own way and living her own life in spite 
 of remonstrances from bevies of friends, 
 who saw no shadow of reason or common 
 sense in her sort of gardening. It would 
 have been foolish enough for a young woman 
 with a small living income to cultivate roses 
 or violets or lavender, but this would at 
 least have been poetic, while the arduous 
 
MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN. 13 
 
 tilling of a soil where the only plants were 
 little people "all in a row" was something 
 beyond credence. 
 
 The truth about Mistress Mary lay some 
 where in the via media between the criti 
 cisms of her skeptical friends and the en 
 comiums of her enthusiastic admirers. In 
 forsaking society temporarily she had no 
 rooted determination to forsake it eternally, 
 and if the incense of love which her neo 
 phytes forever burned at her shrine savored 
 somewhat of adoration, she disarmed jeal 
 ousy by frankly avowing her unworthiness 
 and lack of desire to wear the martyr s 
 crown. Her happiness in her chosen voca 
 tion made it impossible, she argued, to re 
 gard her as a person worthy of canonization ; 
 though the neophytes were always sighing to 
 
 have that little head of hers, 
 Painted upon a background of pale gold." 
 
 She had been born with a capacity for help 
 ing lame dogs over stiles; accordingly, her 
 pathway, from a very early age, had been 
 bestrewn with stiles, and processions of 
 lame dogs ever limping towards them. Her 
 vocation had called her so imperiously that 
 disobedience was impossible. It is all very 
 
14 HARM LISA. 
 
 well if a certain work asks one in a quiet 
 and courteous manner to come and do it, 
 when one has time and inclination; but it 
 is quite another matter if it coaxes one so 
 insistently that one can do nothing else 
 properly, and so succumbs finally to the 
 persuasive voice. Still, the world must be 
 mothered somehow, and there are plenty of 
 women who lack the time or the strength, 
 the gift or the desire, the love or the pa 
 tience, to do their share. This gap seems 
 to be filled now and then by some inspired 
 little creature like Mistress Mary, with 
 enough potential maternity to mother an 
 orphan asylum; too busy, too absorbed, too 
 radiantly absent-minded, to see a husband 
 in any man, but claiming every child in the 
 universe as her very own. There was never 
 anywhere an urchin so dirty, so ragged, so 
 naughty, that it could not climb into Mis 
 tress Mary s lap, and from thence into her 
 heart. The neophytes partook of her zeal 
 in greater or less degree, and forsaking all 
 probability of lovers (though every one of 
 them was young and pretty), they tied on 
 their white aprons and clave only unto her. 
 Daily intercourse with a couple of hundred 
 little street Arabs furnished a field for the 
 
MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN. 15 
 
 practice of considerable feminine virtue, 
 and in reality the woman s kingdom at the 
 top of the broad wooden steps was a great \ 
 culture engine" of spiritual motherhood. 
 
 It certainly was a very merry place, and 
 if its presiding geniuses were engaged in 
 conscious philanthropy the blighting hall 
 mark was conspicuous by its absence. Peals 
 of laughter rang through the rooms; smil 
 ing faces leaned from the upstairs windows, 
 bowing greeting to the ashman, the scissors - 
 grinder, the Italian and Chinese vegetable- 
 venders, the rag-sack-and-bottle man, and 
 the other familiar figures of the neighbor 
 hood. 
 
 It was at the end of a happy, helpful day 
 that Mistress Mary stood in the front door 
 and looked out over her kingdom. 
 
 There was a rosy Swedish girl sitting on 
 the floor of a shop window opposite and 
 washing the glass. She had moved the 
 fresh vegetables aside and planted herself 
 in the midst of them. There she sat among 
 the cabbages and turnips and other sweet 
 things just out of the earth; piles of deli 
 cate green lettuce buds, golden carrots 
 bursting into feathery tops, ruddy beets, 
 and pink-cheeked potatoes. It was pretty 
 
1G HARM LISA. 
 
 to see the honest joy of her work and the 
 interest of her parted lips, when, after pol 
 ishing the glass, it shone as crystal clear as 
 her own eyes. A milkman stopping to look 
 at her (and small wonder that he did) 
 poured nearly a quart of cream on the 
 ground, and two children ran squabbling 
 under the cart to see if they could catch the 
 drippings in their mouths. They were 
 Atlantic and Pacific Simon son, with Marm 
 Lisa, as usual, at their heels. She had 
 found her way to this corner twice of late, 
 because things happened there marvelous 
 enough to stir even her heavy mind. There 
 was a certain flight of narrow, rickety steps 
 leading to a rickety shanty, and an adjacent 
 piece of fence with a broad board on top. 
 Flower-pots had once stood there, but they 
 were now lying on the ground below, broken 
 into fragments. Marm Lisa could push the 
 twins up to this vantage-ground, and crawl 
 up after them. Once ensconced, if they 
 had chosen the right time of day, interesting 
 events were sure to be forthcoming. In a 
 large playground within range of vision, 
 there were small children, as many in num 
 ber as the sands of the seashore. At a 
 given moment, a lovely angel with black 
 
MISTRESS MARTS GARDEN. 17 
 
 hair and a scarlet apron would ring a large 
 bell. Simultaneously, a lovely angel with 
 brown hair and a white apron would fly to 
 the spot, and the children would go through 
 a mysterious process like the swarming of 
 bees around a queen. Slowly, reluctantly, 
 painfully, the swarm settled itself into lines 
 in conformance with some hidden law or 
 principle unknown to Marm Lisa. Then, 
 when comparative order had been evolved 
 from total chaos, the most beautiful angel, 
 of all would appear in a window ; and the 
 reason she always struck the on-lookers as 
 a being of beauty and majesty was partly, 
 perhaps, because her head seemed to rise 
 from a cloud of white (which was in reality 
 only a fichu of white mull), and partly be 
 cause she always wore a slender fillet of 
 steel to keep back the waves of her fair 
 hair. It had a little point in front, and 
 when the sun shone on its delicate, fine-cut 
 prisms it glittered like a halo. After the 
 appearance of this heavenly apparition the 
 endless lines of little people wended their 
 way into the building and enchanting strains 
 of music were wafted through the open win 
 dows, supplemented sometimes by the in 
 spiring rattle of drums and the blare of in- 
 
18 MA KM LISA. 
 
 struments hitherto inclissolubly associated 
 with street parades. 
 
 Who? Why? Whence? Whither? 
 What for? These were some of the ques 
 tions that assailed Marm Lisa s mind, but 
 in so incoherent a form that she left them, 
 with all other questions, unanswered. At 
 lantic and Pacific were curious, too, but 
 other passions held greater sway with them ; 
 for when the children disappeared and the 
 music ceased, they called loudly for more, 
 and usually scratched and pinched Marm 
 Lisa as they were lifted down from the 
 fence ; not seeing clearly how anybody else 
 could be held answerable for the cessation 
 of the entertainment, and scratches and 
 pinches being the only remedial agencies 
 that suggested themselves. 
 
 On this particular occasion there were no 
 bells, no music, and no mysterious swarm 
 ing; but the heavenly apparition sat on the 
 broad steps. Yes, it was she! Blue-gray 
 eyes with darker lashes sweeping the warm 
 ivory of her cheeks, sweet true lips forever 
 parting in kind words, the white surplice 
 and apron, and the rememberable steel fil 
 let. She had a little child in her lap (she 
 generally had, by the way), and there were 
 
MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN. 19 
 
 other tots clinging fondly to her motherly 
 skirts. Marm Lisa stood at the foot of the 
 steps, a twin glued to each side. She 
 stared at Mistress Mary with open-mouthed 
 wonder not unmixed with admiration. 
 
 "That same odd child," thought Mary. 
 "I have seen her before, and always with 
 those two little vampires hanging to her 
 skirts. She looks a trifle young to have 
 such constant family cares ; perhaps we had 
 better lend a hand. " 
 
 "Won t you come in?" she asked, with 
 a smile that would have drawn a sane per 
 son up the side of a precipice. 
 
 Atlantic turned and ran, but the other 
 two stood their ground. 
 
 "Won t you come up and see us?" she 
 repeated. "There are some fishes swim 
 ming in a glass house; come and look at 
 them." 
 
 Marm Lisa felt herself dragged up the 
 steps as by invisible chains, and even Pacific 
 did not attempt to resist the irresistible. 
 Atlantic, finding himself deserted by his 
 comrades, gave a yell of baffled rage, and 
 scrambled up the steps after them. But 
 his tears dried instantly at the sight of the 
 room into which they were ushered; as 
 
20 MARM LISA. 
 
 large as any of the halls in which aunt Cora 
 spent her days, and how much more beauti 
 ful ! They roved about, staring at the aqua 
 rium, and gazing at the rocking-horse, the 
 piano, the drum, the hanging gardens, with 
 speechless astonishment. Lisa shambled at 
 their heels, looking at nothing very long; 
 and when Rhoda (one of the neophytes), 
 full of sympathy at the appearance of the 
 wild, forlorn, unkempt trio, sat herself 
 down on a sofa and gathered them about 
 a wonderful picture-book, Mistress Mary s 
 keen eyes saw that Lisa s gaze wandered in 
 a few minutes. Presently she crept over 
 the floor towards a table, and, taking a 
 string from it, began to blow it to and fro 
 as it hung from her fingers. Rhoda s glance 
 followed Mary s; but it was only a fleeting 
 one, for the four eyes of the twins were 
 riveted on hers with devouring eagerness, 
 while they waited for her explanation of the 
 pictures. At the end of half an hour, in 
 which the children had said little or nothing, 
 they had contrived to reveal so many sor 
 rowful and startling details of their mental, 
 moral, and physical endowment that Mis 
 tress Mary put on her hat. 
 
 "I will go home with them," she said. 
 
MJ STRESS MARTS GARDEN. 21 
 
 "There is plenty of work here for some 
 body; I could almost hope that it won t 
 prove ours." 
 
 "It will," replied Khoda, with a stifled 
 sigh. "There is an old Eastern legend 
 about the black camel that comes and lies 
 down before the door of him upon whom 
 Heaven is going to lay her chastening hand. 
 Every time I have seen that awful trio on 
 the fence-top, they were fairly surrounded 
 by black camels in my imagination. Mis 
 tress Mary, I am not sure but that, in self- 
 defense, we ought to become a highly spe 
 cialized Something. We are now a home, 
 a mother, a nursery, a labor bureau, a 
 divorce court, a registry of appeals, a soup 
 kitchen, an advisory board, and a police 
 force. If we take her, what shall we be? " 
 
 "We will see first where she belongs," 
 smiled Mary. (Nobody could help smiling 
 at Ehoda.) "Somebody has been neglect 
 ing his or her duty. If we can make that 
 somebody realize his delinquencies, all the 
 better, for the responsibility will not be 
 ours. If we cannot, why, the case is clear 
 enough and simple enough in my mind. We 
 certainly do not want Mene, mene, tekel, 
 upharsin, written over this, of all doors." 
 
22 HARM LISA. 
 
 Rhoda s hand went up to an imaginary 
 cap in a gesture of military obedience. 
 "Very well, my general. I fly to prepare 
 weapons with which to fight Satan. You, 
 of course, will take her ; oh, my dear, I m 
 almost afraid you oughtn t! I choose the 
 bullet-headed blonde twin who says his 
 name is Lanty, and reserve for Edith the 
 bursting-with-fat brunette twin who calls 
 herself Ciffy. Edith s disciplinary powers 
 have been too much vaunted of late; we 
 shall see if Ciffy ruffles her splendid seren 
 ity." 
 
III. 
 
 A FAMILY POLYGON. 
 
 MRS. GRUBB S family circle was really 
 not a circle at all; it was rather a polygon, 
 a curious assemblage of distinct person 
 ages. 
 
 There was no unity in it, no membership 
 one of another. It was four ones, not one 
 four. If some gatherer of statistics had 
 visited the household, he might have de 
 scribed it thus : 
 
 "Mrs. S. Cora Grubb, widow, aged forty 
 years. 
 
 "Alisa Bennett, feeble-minded, aged ten 
 or twelve years. 
 
 "Atlantic and Pacific Simonson, twins, 
 aged four years." 
 
 The man of statistics might seek in vain 
 for some principle of attraction or cohesion 
 between these independent elements; but 
 no one who knew Mrs. Grubb would have 
 been astonished at the sort of family that 
 had gathered itself about her. Queer as it 
 
24 HARM LISA. 
 
 undoubtedly was at this period, it had at 
 various times been infinitely queerer. There 
 was a certain memorable month, shortly 
 after her husband s decease, when Mrs. 
 Grubb allowed herself to be considered as 
 a compensated hostess, though the terms 
 "landlady" and "boarder" were never ut 
 tered in her hearing. She hired a Chinese 
 cook, who slept at home, cleared out for the 
 use of Lisa and the twins a small storeroom 
 in which she commonly kept Eldorado face 
 powder, and herself occupied a sofa in the 
 apartment of a friend of humanity in the 
 next street. These arrangements enabled 
 her to admit an experimenter on hypnotism, 
 a mental healer who had been much abused 
 by the orthodox members of her cult and 
 was evolving a method of her own, an 
 ostensible delegate to an Occidental Confer 
 ence of Religions, and a lady agent for a 
 flexible celluloid undershirt. For a few 
 days Mrs. Grubb found the society of these 
 persons very stimulating and agreeable, but 
 before long the hypnotist proved to be an 
 unscrupulous gentleman who hypnotized the 
 mental healer so that she could not heal, 
 and the Chinese cook so that he could not 
 cook. When, therefore, the delegate de- 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 25 
 
 parted suddenly in company with the cellu 
 loid-underwear lady, explaining by a hur 
 ried postal card that they would "remit" 
 from Chicago, she evicted the other two 
 boarders, and retired again to private life. 
 
 This episode was only one of Mrs. Grubb s 
 many divagations, for she had been a person 
 of advanced ideas from a comparatively 
 early age. It would seem that she must 
 have inherited a certain number of "views," 
 because no human being could have 
 amassed, in a quarter of a century, as many 
 as she held at the age of twenty-five. She 
 had then stood up with Mr. Charles Grubb 
 before a large assembly, in the presence of 
 which they promised to assume and continue 
 the relation of husband and wife so long as 
 it was mutually agreeable. As a matter of 
 fact it had not been mutually agreeable to 
 Mr. Grubb more than six months, but such 
 was the nobility of his character that he 
 never disclosed his disappointment nor 
 claimed any immunity from the responsibili 
 ties of the marriage state. Mr. Grubb was 
 a timid, conventional soul, who would have 
 given all the testimony of all the witnesses 
 of his wedding ceremony for the mere pre 
 sence of a single parson; but he imagined 
 
26 MARM LISA. 
 
 himself in love with Cora Wilkins, and she 
 could neither be wooed nor won by any of 
 the beaten paths that led to other women. 
 He foolishly thought that the number of her 
 convictions would grow less after she be 
 came a wife, little suspecting the fertility 
 of her mind, which put forth a new expla 
 nation of the universe every day, like a 
 strawberry plant that devotes itself so ex 
 clusively to "runners" that it has little 
 vigor left for producing fruit. 
 
 The town in New York where they lived 
 proving to be too small, narrow, and bigoted 
 to hold a developing soul like Mrs. Grubb s, 
 she persuaded her husband to take passage 
 for California, where the climate might be 
 supposed more favorable to the growth of 
 saving ideas. Mr. Grubb would of course 
 be obliged to relinquish his business, but 
 people could buy and sell anywhere, she 
 thought, and as for her, she wanted nothing 
 but unlimited space in which to expand. 
 
 There was money enough for an economi 
 cal journey and a month or two of idleness 
 afterward, and as Mrs. Grubb believed 
 everything in the universe was hers if she 
 only chose to claim it, the question of 
 finances never greatly troubled her. They 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 27 
 
 sailed for the golden West, then, this ill- 
 assorted couple, accompanied by Mrs. 
 Grubb s only sister, who had been a wife, 
 was now a widow, and would shortly become 
 a mother. The interesting event occurred 
 much sooner than had been anticipated. 
 The ship became the birthplace of the twins, 
 who had been most unwelcome when they 
 were thought about as one, and entirely 
 offensive when found to be two. The mo 
 ther did not long survive the shock of her 
 surprise and displeasure, and after naming 
 the babies Atlantic and Pacific, and confid 
 ing them distinctly to the care of Mr. , not 
 Mrs., Grubb, she died and was buried at 
 sea, not far from Cape Horn. Mrs. Cora 
 enjoyed at first the dramatic possibilities of 
 her position on the ship, where the baby 
 orphans found more than one kindly senti 
 mental woman ready to care for them ; but 
 there was no permanent place in her philo 
 sophy for a pair of twins who entered exist 
 ence with a concerted shriek, and continued 
 it forever afterward, as if their only pur 
 pose in life was to keep the lungs well in 
 flated. Her supreme wish was to be freed 
 from the carking cares of the flesh, and 
 thus forever ready to wing her free spirit in 
 the pure ether of speculation. 
 
28 HARM LISA. 
 
 You would hardly suppose that the ob 
 scure spouse of Mrs. Grubb could wash and 
 dress the twins, prepare their breakfast, go 
 to his work, come home and put them to 
 bed, four or five days out of every seven in 
 the week; but that is what he did, accept 
 ing it as one phase of the mysterious human 
 comedy (or was it tragedy?) in which he 
 played his humble part. 
 
 Mrs. Grubb was no home spirit, no god 
 dess of the hearth. She graced her family 
 board when no invitation to refresh herself 
 elsewhere had been proffered, and that she 
 generally slept in her own bed is as strong 
 a phrase as can be written on the subject. 
 If she had been born in Paris, at the proper 
 time, she would have been the leader of a 
 salon ; separated from that brilliant destiny 
 by years, by race, and by imperious circum 
 stance, she wielded the same sort of sceptre 
 in her own circumscribed but appreciative 
 sphere. No social occasion in Eden Place 
 was complete without Mrs. Grubb. With 
 her (and some light refreshment), a party 
 lacked nothing; without her, even if other 
 conditions were favorable, it seemed a flat, 
 stale, and unprofitable affair. Like Robin 
 Adair, 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 29 
 
 " She made the ball so fine : 
 She made th occasion shine." 
 
 Mrs. Grtibb hanging on her front gate, 
 duster in hand (she never conversed quite 
 as well without it, and never did anything 
 else with it), might have been a humble 
 American descendant of Madame de Stael 
 talking on the terrace at Coppet, with the 
 famous sprig of olive in her fingers. She 
 moved among her subjects like a barouche 
 among express wagons, was heard after 
 them as a song after sermons. That she 
 did not fulfill the whole duty of woman did 
 not occur to her fascinated constituents. 
 There was always some duller spirit who 
 could slip in and "do the dishes," that Mrs. 
 Grubb might grace a conversazione on the 
 steps or at the gate. She was not one of 
 those napkin people who hide their talents, 
 or who immure their lights under superin 
 cumbent bushels. Whatever was hers was 
 everybody s, for she dispensed her favors 
 with a liberal hand. She would never have 
 permitted a child to suffer for lack of food 
 or bed, for she was not at heart an unkind 
 woman. You could see that by looking at 
 her vague, soft brown eyes, eyes that never 
 saw practical duties straight in front of 
 

 30 MARM LISA. 
 
 them, liquid, star-gazing, vision-seeing 
 eyes, that could never be focused on any 
 near object, such as a twin or a cooking 
 stove. Individuals never interested her; 
 she cared for nothing but humanity, and 
 humanity writ very large at that, so that 
 once the twins nearly died of scarlatina 
 while Mrs. Grubb was collecting money for 
 the children of the yellow-fever sufferers in 
 the South. 
 
 But Providence had an eye for Mr. 
 Grubb s perplexities. It does not and can 
 not always happen, in a world like this, 
 that vice is assisted to shirk and virtue 
 aided to do its duty ; but any man as mar- 
 velously afflicted as Mr. Grubb is likely to 
 receive not only spiritual consolation, but 
 miraculous aid of some sort. The spectacle 
 of the worthy creature as he gave the reluc 
 tant twins their occasional bath, and fed 
 them on food regularly prescribed by Mrs. 
 Grubb, and almost as regularly rejected by 
 them, would have melted the stoniest heart. 
 And who was the angel of deliverance? A 
 little vacant-eyed, half -foolish, almost inar 
 ticulate child, whose feeble and sickly mo 
 ther was dragging out a death-in-life exist 
 ence in a street near by. The child saw 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 31 
 
 Mr. Grubb wheeling the twins in a double 
 perambulator; followed them home; came 
 again, and then again, and then again; 
 hung about the door, fell upon a dog that 
 threatened to bite them, and drove it away 
 howling; often stood over the perambulator 
 with a sunshade for three hours at a time, 
 without moving a muscle, and adored Mr. 
 Grubb with a consuming passion. There 
 was no special reason for this sentiment, 
 but then Alisa Bennett was not quite a rea 
 sonable being. Mr. Grubb had never been 
 adored before in his life; and to say the 
 truth, his personality was not winning. He 
 had a pink, bald head, pale blue eyes, with 
 blonde tufts for eyebrows, and a pointed 
 beard dripping from his chin which tended 
 to make him look rather like an invalid 
 goat. But as animals are said to have an 
 eye for spirits, children have an eye for 
 souls, which is far rarer than an eye for 
 beautiful surfaces. 
 
 Mr. Grubb began by loathing Alisa, then 
 patiently suffered her, then pitied, then 
 respected, then loved her. Mrs. Grubb 
 seldom saw her, and objected to nothing by 
 which she herself was relieved of care. So 
 Lisa grew to be first a familiar figure in 
 
32 HARM LISA. 
 
 the household, and later an indispensable 
 one. 
 
 Poor Mrs. Bennett finally came to the 
 end of things temporal. "Dying is the 
 first piece of good luck I ever had," she 
 said to Mr. Grubb. "If it turns out that 
 I ve brought a curse upon an innocent crea 
 ture, I d rather go and meet my punishment 
 halfway than stay here and see it worked 
 out to the end." 
 
 " In my Father s house are many man 
 sions, " stammered Mr. Grubb, who had 
 never before administered spiritual consola 
 tion. 
 
 She shook her head. "If I can only get 
 rid of this world, it s all I ask," she said; 
 "if the other one isn t any better, why, it 
 can t be any worse! Feel under the mat 
 tress and you 11 find money enough to last 
 three or four years. It s all she 11 ever 
 get, for she hasn t a soul now to look to 
 for help. That s the way we human beings 
 arrange things, we, or the Lord, or the 
 Evil One, or whoever it is; we bring a 
 puzzle into the world, and then leave it for 
 other people to work out if they can! 
 Who 11 work out this one? Who 11 work 
 out this one? Perhaps she ll die before 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 33 
 
 the money s gone; let s hope for the 
 best." 
 
 "Don t take on like that!" said Mr. 
 Grubb despairingly, "don t! Pray for 
 resignation, can t you?" 
 
 "Pray!" she exclaimed scornfully. 
 "Thank goodness, I ve got enough self- 
 respect left not to pray ! Yes, I must 
 pray, I must! . . . Oh, God! I do not 
 ask forgiveness for him or for myself; I 
 only beg that, in some way I cannot see, 
 we may be punished, and she spared! " 
 
 And when the stricken soul had fled from 
 her frail body, they who came to prepare 
 her for the grave looked at her face and 
 found it shining with hope. 
 
 It was thus that poor little Alisa Bennett 
 assumed maternal responsibilities at the age 
 of ten, and gained her sobriquet of "Marm 
 Lisa." She grew more human, more tract 
 able, under Mr. Grubb s fostering care; 
 but that blessed martyr had now been dead 
 two years, and she began to wear her former 
 vacuous look, and to slip back into the past 
 that was still more dreadful than the pre 
 sent. 
 
 It seemed to Mrs. Grubb more than 
 strange that she, with her desire for free- 
 
34 MARM LISA. 
 
 dom, should be held to earth by three chil 
 dren not flesh of her flesh, and such chil 
 dren ! The father of the twins had been a 
 professional pugilist, but even that fact 
 could never sufficiently account for Pacific 
 Simonson. She had apparently inherited 
 instincts from tribes of warlike ancestors 
 who skulked behind trees with battleaxes, 
 and no one except her superior in size and 
 courage was safe from her violent hand. 
 She had little wicked dark eyes and crimson 
 swollen cheeks, while Atlantic had flaxen 
 hair, a low forehead, and a square jaw. 
 He had not Pacific s ingenuity in conceiv 
 ing evil, but when it was once conceived, 
 he had a dogged persistency in carrying it 
 out that made him worthy of his twin. 
 
 Yet with all these crosses Mrs. Grubb 
 was moderately cheerful, for her troubles 
 were as nebulous as everything else to her 
 mind. She intended to invent some feasi 
 ble plan for her deliverance sooner or later, 
 but she was much more intent upon devel 
 opment than deliverance, and she never 
 seemed to have the leisure to break her 
 shackles. Nothing really mattered much. 
 Her body might be occasionally in Eden 
 Place, but her soul was always in a hired 
 
A FAMILY POLYGON. 35 
 
 hall. She delighted in joining the New 
 Order of Something, anything, so long 
 as it was an Order and a new one, and 
 then going with a selected committee to 
 secure a lodge-room or a hall for meetings. 
 She liked to walk up the dim aisle with the 
 janitor following after her, and imagine 
 brilliant lights (paid for by collection), a 
 neat table and lamp and pitcher of iced 
 water, and herself in the chair as president 
 or vice-president, secretary or humble trus 
 tee. There was that about her that pre 
 cluded the possibility of simple membership. 
 She always rose into office the week after 
 she had joined any society. If there was 
 no office vacant, then some bold spirit (gen 
 erally male) would create one, that Mrs. 
 Grubb might not wither in the privacy of 
 the ranks. Before the charter members 
 had fully learned the alphabet of their order 
 and had gained a thorough understanding 
 of the social revolution it was destined to 
 work, Mrs. Grubb had mastered the whole 
 scheme and was unfolding it before large 
 classes for the study of the higher theory. 
 The instant she had a tale to tell she pre 
 sumed the "listening earth" to be ready to 
 hear it. The new Order became an old one 
 
MAh M LISA. 
 
 in course of time, ami, like the nautilus, 
 Mrs. Grubb outgrew her shell and built 
 herself a more stately chamber. Another 
 clue to the universe was soon forthcoming, 
 for all this happened in a eity where it is 
 mvessary only for a man to open his lips 
 and say, "I am a prophet," and followers 
 flock unto him as many in number as the 
 stars. She was never disturbed that the 
 last clue had brought her nowhere ; she fol 
 lowed the new one as passionately as the 
 old, and told her breathless pupils that 
 their feet must not be weary, for they were 
 treading the path of progress; that these 
 apparently fruitless excursions into the do 
 main of knowledge all served as so many 
 milestones in their glorious ascent of the 
 mountain of truth. 
 
IV. 
 
 HARM LISA IS TRANSPLANTED. 
 
 IT was precisely as Khoda thought and 
 feared. The three strange beings who had 
 drifted within Mistress Mary s reach had 
 proved to belong to her simply because they 
 did not belong to anybody else. They did 
 not know their names, the streets in which 
 they lived, or anything else about which 
 they were questioned, but she had followed 
 them home to the corner house of Eden 
 Place, although she failed, on the occasion 
 of that first visit, to find Mrs. Grubb 
 within. There was, however, a very volu 
 ble person next door, who supplied a little 
 information and asked considerable more. 
 Mrs. Sylvester told Mary that Mrs. Grubb 
 was at that moment presiding over a meet 
 ing of the Kipling Brothers in Unity Hall, 
 just round the corner. 
 
 "They meet Tuesdays and Thursdays at 
 four o clock," she said, "and you d find it 
 a real treat if you like to step over there." 
 
38 MARM LISA. 
 
 "Thank you, I am rather busy this after 
 noon," replied Mary. 
 
 "Do you wish to leave any name or mes 
 sage ? Did you want a setting? " 
 
 " A sitting ? " asked Mary vaguely. " Oh 
 no, thank you; I merely wished to see Mrs. 
 Grubb is that the name ? " 
 
 "That s it, and an awful grievance it is 
 to her, Mrs. S. Cora Grubb. You have 
 seen it in the newspapers, I suppose; she 
 has a half column ad in the Sunday Ob 
 server once a month. Wouldn t you like 
 your nails attended to ? I have a perfectly 
 splendid manicure stopping with me." 
 
 "No, thank you. I hoped to see Mrs. 
 Grubb, to ask if her children can come and 
 spend the morning with me to-morrow." 
 
 "Oh, that ll be all right; they re not 
 her children; she doesn t care where they 
 go; they stay in the back yard or on the 
 sand-lot most of the time; she s got some 
 thing more important to occupy her atten 
 tion. Say, I hope you 11 excuse me, but 
 you look a little pale. If you were intend 
 ing to get some mental healing from Mrs. 
 Grubb, why, I can do it; she found I had 
 the power, and she s handed all her healing 
 over to me. It s a new method, and is 
 
MARM LISA IS TRANSPLANTED. 39 
 
 going to supersede all the others, we think. 
 My hours are from ten to twelve, and two 
 to four, but I could take you evenings, if 
 you re occupied during the day. My cures 
 are almost as satisfactory as Mrs. Grubb s 
 now, though I haven t been healing but six 
 months last Wednesday." 
 
 "Fortunately I am very well and strong," 
 smiled Mistress Mary. 
 
 "Yes, that s all right, but you don t 
 know how soon sickness may overtake you, 
 if you have n t learned to cast off fear and 
 practice the denials. Those who are living 
 in error are certain to be affected by it 
 sooner or later unless they accept the new 
 belief. Why don t you have your nails 
 done, now you re here? My manicure has 
 the highest kind of a polish, she uses 
 pumice powder and the rose of Peru lustre : 
 you ought to try her; by taking twenty 
 tickets you get your single treatments for 
 thirty-five cents apiece. Not this after 
 noon? Well, some other time, then. It 
 will be all right about the children, and 
 very good of you to want them. Of course 
 you can t teach them anything, if that s 
 your idea. Belief in original sin is all 
 against my theories, but I confess I can t 
 
40 MARM LISA. 
 
 explain the twins without it. I sometimes 
 wonder I can do any healing, with them in 
 the next house throwing off evil influences. 
 I am treating Lisa by suggestion, but she 
 has n t responded any yet. Call again, 
 won t you? Mrs. Grubb is in from seven 
 to eight in the morning, and ten thirty to 
 eleven thirty in the evening. You ought 
 to know her; we think there s nobody like 
 Mrs. Grubb; she has a wonderful follow 
 ing, and it s growing all the time; I took 
 this house to be near her. Good-afternoon. 
 By the way, if you or any of your friends 
 should require any vocal culture, you 
 could n t do better than take of Madame 
 Goldmarker in number seventeen. She can 
 make anybody sing, they say. I m taking 
 of her right along, and my voice has about 
 doubled in size. I ought to be leading the 
 Kipling Brothers now, but my patients 
 stayed so late to-day I didn t get a good 
 start. Good-afternoon." 
 
 The weeks wore on, and the children 
 were old friends when Mary finally made 
 Mrs. Grubb s acquaintance; but in the 
 somewhat hurried interviews she had with 
 that lady at first, she never seemed able to 
 establish the kind of relation she desired. 
 
MARM LISA IS TRANSPLANTED. 41 
 
 The very atmosphere of her house was cha 
 otic, and its equally chaotic mistress showed 
 no sign of seeking advice on any point. 
 
 "Marm Lisa could hardly be received in 
 the schools," Mary told the listening neo 
 phytes one afternoon when they were all 
 together. "There ought of course to be a 
 special place for her and such as she, some 
 where, and people are beginning to see and 
 feel the importance of it here; but until the 
 thought and hope become a reality the state 
 will simply put the child in with the idiots 
 and lunatics, to grow more and more 
 wretched, more hopeless, more stupid, until 
 the poor little light is quenched in utter 
 darkness. There is hope for her now, I 
 am sure of it. If Mrs. Grubb s neighbors 
 have told me the truth, any physical malady 
 that may be pursuing her is in its very first 
 stages; for, so far as they know in Eden 
 Place, where one doesn t look for exact 
 knowledge, to be sure, she has had but two 
 or three attacks ( dizziness or faintness 
 they called them) in as many years. She 
 was very strange and intractable just before 
 the last one, and much clearer in her mind 
 afterwards. They think her worse of late, 
 and have advised Mrs. Grubb to send her 
 
42 MARM LISA. 
 
 to an insane asylum if she doesn t improve. 
 She would probably have gone there long 
 ago if she had not been such a valuable 
 watch-dog for the twins; but she does not 
 belong there, we have learned that from 
 the doctors. They say decisively that she 
 is curable, but that she needs very delicate 
 treatment. My opinion is that we have a 
 lovely bit of rescue-work sent directly into 
 our hands in the very nick of time. All 
 those in favor of opening the garden gates 
 a little wider for Marm Lisa respond by 
 saying Ay! " 
 
 There was a shout from the neophytes 
 that shook the very rafters such a shout 
 that Lisa shuffled across the room, and sit 
 ting down on a stool at Mistress Mary s 
 feet, looked up at her with a dull, uncom 
 prehending smile. Why were those beloved 
 eyes full of tears? She could not be dis 
 pleased, for she had been laughing a mo 
 ment before. She hardly knew why, but 
 Mistress Mary s wet eyes tortured her; she 
 made an ejaculation of discomfort and re 
 sentment, and taking the corner of her 
 apron wiped her new friend s face softly, 
 gazing at her with a dumb sorrow until 
 the smile came back; then she took out her 
 
MARX LISA IS TRANSPLANTED. 43 
 
 string and her doll and played by herself as 
 contentedly as usual. 
 
 It was thus that heaven began to dawn 
 on poor Marm Lisa. At first only a phy 
 sical heaven : temporary separation from 
 Atlantic and Pacific; a chair to herself in 
 a warm, sunshiny room; beautiful, bright, 
 incomprehensible things hanging on the 
 walls ; a soft gingham apron that her clumsy 
 fingers loved to touch ; brilliant bits of color 
 and entrancing waves of sound that roused 
 her sleeping senses to something like plea 
 sure; a smile meeting her eyes when she 
 looked up, oh ! she knew a smile, God 
 lets love dwell in these imprisoned spirits! 
 By and by all these new sensations were 
 followed by thoughts, or something akin to 
 them. Her face wore a brooding, puzzled 
 look. "Poor little soul, she is feeling her 
 growing-pains!" said Mistress Mary. It 
 was a mind sitting in a dim twilight where 
 everything seems confused. The physical 
 eye appears to see, but the light never quite 
 pierces the dimness nor reflects its beauty 
 there. If the ears hear the song of birds, 
 the cooing of babes, the heart-beat in the 
 organ tone, then the swift little messengers 
 that fly hither and thither in my mind and 
 
44 MARM LISA. 
 
 yours, carrying echoes of sweetness unspeak 
 able, tread more slowly here, and never 
 quite reach the spirit in prison. A spirit 
 in prison, indeed, but with one ray of sun 
 light shining through the bars, a vision 
 of duty. Lisa s weak memory had lost 
 almost all trace of Mr. Grubb as a person, 
 but the old instinct of fidelity was still there 
 in solution, and unconsciously influenced 
 her actions. The devotion that first pos 
 sessed her when she beheld the twins as 
 babies in the perambulator still held sway 
 against all their evil actions. If they 
 plunged into danger she plunged after them 
 without a thought of consequences. There 
 was, perhaps, no real heroism in this, for 
 she saw no risks and counted no cost ; this 
 is what other people said, but Mistress 
 Mary always thought Marm Lisa had in 
 her the stuff out of which heroes and mar 
 tyrs are made. She had never walked in 
 life s sunny places; it had always been the 
 valley of the shadow for her. She was sur 
 rounded by puzzles, with never any answer 
 to one of them, but if only she had compre 
 hended the truth, it was these very puzzles 
 that were her salvation. While her feeble 
 mind stirred, while it wondered, brooded, 
 
MARM LISA IS TRANSPLANTED. 45 
 
 suffered, though it did all these too sel 
 dom, it kept itself alive, even if the life 
 were only like the flickering of a candle. 
 And now the candle might flicker, but it 
 should never go out altogether, if half a 
 dozen pairs of women s hands could keep it 
 from extinction; and how patiently they 
 were outstretched to shield the poor apology 
 for a flame, and coax it into burning more 
 brightly ! 
 
 "Let the child choose her own special 
 teacher," said Mistress Mary; "she is sure 
 to have a strong preference." 
 
 "Then it will be you," laughed Helen. 
 
 "Don t be foolish; it may be any one of 
 us, and it will prove nothing in any case 
 save a fancy that we can direct to good 
 use." 
 
 "She seldom looks at anybody but you," 
 said Edith. 
 
 "That is true," replied Mary thought 
 fully. "I think she is attracted by this glit 
 tering steel thing in my hair. I am going to 
 weave it into Helen s curly crop some day, 
 and see whether she misses it or transfers 
 her affection. I have made up my mind 
 who is the best teacher for her and whom 
 she will choose." 
 
46 MARM LISA. 
 
 Rhoda gave a comical groan. "Don t 
 say it s I," she pleaded. "I dread it. 
 Please, I am not good enough, I don t know 
 how; and besides, she gives me the creeps! " 
 
 Mistress Mary turned on Rhoda with a 
 reproachful smile, saying, "You naughty 
 Rhoda, with the brightest eyes, the swiftest 
 feet, the nimblest fingers, the lightest heart 
 among us all, why do you want to shirk? " 
 
 Mistress Mary had noted the fact that 
 Lisa had refused to sit in an unpainted 
 chair, but had dragged a red one from an 
 other room and ensconced herself in it, 
 though it was uncomfortably small. 
 
 Now Rhoda was well named, for she was 
 a rose of a girl, with damask cheeks that 
 glowed like two Jacqueminot beauties. She 
 was much given to aprons of scarlet linen, 
 to collars and belts of red velvet, and she 
 had a general air of being fresh, thoroughly 
 alive, and in a state of dewy and perennial 
 bloom. Mary was right in her surmise, 
 and whenever she herself was out of Lisa s 
 sight or reach the child turned to Rhoda 
 instinctively and obeyed her implicitly. 
 
V. 
 
 HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 
 
 "Now, Rhoda dear," said Mistress Mary 
 one day, when Lisa had become somewhat 
 wonted to her new surroundings, "you are 
 to fold your hands respectfully in your lap, 
 and I will teach you things, things which 
 you in your youth and inexperience have 
 not thought about as yet. The other girls 
 may listen, too, and catch the drippings of 
 my wisdom. I really know little about the 
 education of defective children, but, thank 
 Heaven, I can put two and two together, as 
 Susan Nipper said. The general plan will 
 be to train Lisa s hands and speak to her 
 senses in every possible way, since her or 
 gans of sense are within your reach, and 
 those of thought are out of it. The hardest 
 lesson for such a child to learn is the subor 
 dination of its erratic will to our normal 
 ones. Lisa s affection is the most hopeful 
 thing about her, and encourages me more 
 than anything else. It is not as if there 
 
48 HARM LISA. 
 
 were no mental processes existing ; they are 
 there, but in a very enfeebled state. Of 
 course she should have been under skilled 
 teaching the last six years, but, late as it 
 is, we could not think of giving up a child 
 who can talk, use her right hand, dress her 
 self, go upon errands, recognize colors, 
 wash dishes ; who is apparently neither vi 
 cious nor cunning, but who, on the contrary, 
 has lived four years under the same roof 
 with Mrs. S. Cora Grubb without rebellion 
 or violence or treachery ! Why, dear girls, 
 such a task, if it did not appeal to one on 
 the moral, certainly would on the intellect 
 ual side. Marm Lisa will teach us more in 
 a year, you may be sure, than we shall 
 teach her. Let us keep a record of our 
 experiments; drop all materials that seem 
 neither to give her sensations nor wake her 
 discriminative power, and choose others that 
 speak to her more clearly. Let us watch 
 her closely, both to penetrate the secret of 
 her condition and to protect the other chil 
 dren. What a joy, what a triumph, to say 
 to her some dear day, a few years hence, 
 You poor, motherless bairn, we have swept 
 away the cobwebs of your dreams, given 
 you back your will, put a clue to things in 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 49 
 
 your hand : now go on and learn to live and 
 be mistress of your own life under God! " 
 
 It was at such a moment, when Mary s 
 voice trembled and her eyes shone through 
 a mist of tears like two victorious stars, 
 that a hush fell upon the little group, and 
 the spirit of the eternal child descended 
 like a dove, its pure wings stirring the 
 silence of each woman s heart. At such a 
 moment, their daily work, with its round 
 of harsh, unlovely, beautiful, discouraging, 
 hopeful, helpful, heavenly duties, was trans 
 figured, and so were they. The servant 
 was transformed by the service, and the 
 service by the servant. They were alone 
 together, each heart knit to all the others 
 by the close bond of a common vocation; 
 and though a heretofore unknown expe 
 rience, it seemed a natural one when Mis 
 tress Mary suddenly bent her head and said 
 softly : 
 
 "Father in heaven, it is by the vision of 
 thy relation to us that we can apprehend 
 our relation to these little ones. As we 
 have accepted that high trust, so make us 
 loyal to it. When our feet grow weary 
 and our faith grows dim, help us to follow 
 close after the ever perfect One who taught 
 
50 MARM LISA. 
 
 even as we are trying to teach. He it was 
 whom the common people heard gladly. 
 He it was who disdained not the use of 
 objects and symbols, remembering it was 
 the childhood of the race. He it was who 
 spake in parables and stories, laying bare 
 soul of man and heart of nature, and reveal 
 ing each by divine analogy. He it was 
 who took the little ones in his arms and 
 blessed them; who set the child in the 
 midst, saying, Except ye become as one of 
 these. May the afterglow of that inspired 
 teaching ever shine upon the path we are 
 treading. May we bathe our tired spirits 
 in its warmth and glory, and kindle our 
 torches at the splendor of its light. We 
 remember that he told us to feed his lambs. 
 Dear Lord, help all the faithful shepherds 
 who care for the ninety-and-nine that lie in 
 the safe cover of the fold ; help us, too, for 
 we are the wandering shepherds whose part 
 it is to go out over the bleak hills, up the 
 mountain sides and rocky places, and gather 
 in out of the storm and stress of things all 
 the poor, un shepherded, wee bit lammies 
 that have either wandered forlornly away 
 from shelter, or have been born in the wil 
 derness and know no other home. Such an 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 51 
 
 one has just strayed into the fold from the 
 dreary hill-country. It needs a wiser shep 
 herd than any one of us. Grant that by 
 gentleness, patience, and insight we may 
 atone somewhat for our lack of wisdom and 
 skill. We read among thy mysteries that 
 the divine Child was born of a virgin. 
 May he be born again and born daily in 
 our hearts, already touched by that remem 
 brance and consecrated by its meaning. 
 And this we ask for love s sake. Amen." 
 
 Then there was a space of silence, one 
 of those silences in which we seem to be 
 caught up into the heart of things, when 
 hidden meanings are revealed, when the 
 soul stretches itself and grows a little. 
 
 It was a few minutes later when Ehoda 
 said: "I am fired with zeal, I confess it. 
 Henceforth my single aim shall be to bring 
 Marm Lisa into her lost kingdom and in 
 heritance. But meanwhile, how, oh how 
 shall I master the hateful preliminaries? 
 How shall I teach her to lace her shoes and 
 keep them laced, unless I invent a game for 
 it ? How shall I keep her hair from dang 
 ling in her eyes, how keep her aprons neat? 
 though in those respects she is no worse 
 than Pacific Simonson. I promised her a 
 
52 HARM LISA. 
 
 doll yesterday, and she was remarkably 
 good. Do you object, Mistress Mary? " 
 
 "I don t know how much rewards are 
 used in these cases," answered Mary, "but 
 why do you begin with them when the prob 
 lem presents no insuperable difficulties as 
 yet? Whenever she conquers herself, her 
 awkward hands, her weak will, her inatten 
 tion, her restlessness, give her some task 
 she likes, some pleasure or occupation for 
 which she has shown decided preference, 
 and thus make happiness follow close upon 
 the heels of effort. We who see more 
 clearly the meaning of life know that this 
 will not always happen, and we can be con 
 tent to do right for right s sake. I don t 
 object to your putting hosts of slumbering 
 incentives in Lisa s mind, but a slumbering 
 incentive is not vulgar and debasing, like 
 a bribe." 
 
 A plant might be a feeble and common 
 thing, yet it might grow in beauty and 
 strength in a garden like Mistress Mary s. 
 Such soil in the way of surroundings, such 
 patient cultivation of roots and stems, such 
 strengthening of tendrils on all sorts of 
 lovely props, such sunshine of love, such 
 dew of sympathy, such showers of kindness, 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 53 
 
 such favoring breezes of opportunity, such 
 pleasure for a new leaf, joy for a bud, grati 
 tude for a bloom ! What an atmosphere in 
 which to grow towards knowledge and good 
 ness! Was it any wonder that the little 
 people "all in a row" responded to the 
 genius of Mistress Mary s influence? They 
 used to sing a song called The Light Bird, 
 in which some one, all unknown to the chil 
 dren, would slip into the playground with 
 a bit of broken looking-glass, and suddenly 
 a radiant fluttering disk of light would 
 appear on the wall, and dance up and down, 
 above and below, hither and yon, like a 
 winged sunbeam. The children held out 
 longing arms and sang to it coaxingly. 
 Sometimes it quivered over Mistress Mary s 
 head, and fired every delicate point of her 
 steel tiara with such splendor that the Irish 
 babies almost felt like crossing themselves. 
 At such times, those deux petits cceurs sees, 
 Atlantic and Pacific, and all the other full- 
 fledged and half -fledged scapegraces, forgot 
 to be naughty, and the millennium was fore 
 shadowed. The neophytes declared Mis 
 tress Mary a bit of a magician. Somehow 
 or other, the evil imps in the children 
 shrank away, abashed by the soft surprise 
 
54 MARM LISA. 
 
 of a glance that seemed to hope something 
 better, and the good angels came out of 
 their banishment, unfolded their wings, and 
 sunned themselves in the warmth of her 
 approving smile. Her spiritual antennae 
 were so fine, so fine, that they discerned the 
 good in everything; they were feeling now 
 after the soft spot in the rocky heart of 
 Atlantic Simon son; they had not found it 
 yet, but they would, oh, they would in 
 time; for if hope is the lover s staff, it is 
 no less that of the idealist. 
 
 Marm Lisa looked upon the miracles 
 that happened under Mistress Mary s roof 
 with a sort of dazed wonder, but her intelli 
 gence grew a little day by day ; and though 
 she sadly taxed everybody s patience, she 
 infused a new spirit into all the neophytes. 
 
 Had not improvement been rapid, their 
 untrained zeal might perhaps have flagged. 
 Had the mental symptoms, by their obscur 
 ity, baffled them or defied them on every 
 side, their lack of systematic, scientific 
 training for such a task might have made 
 them discouraged; but delicate and exact 
 ing as the work was, their love and enthu 
 siasm, their insight and patience, their 
 cleverness and ingenuity, triumphed over 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 55 
 
 all obstacles; and luckily for their youth 
 and comparative inexperience, they were 
 rewarded in marvelous measure. 
 
 Not that every day was bright and hope 
 ful. The carefully kept record was black 
 enough on occasions, beginning with the 
 morning when Helen, sitting in the circle, 
 felt a rough hand on her head, and Marm 
 Lisa, without the slightest warning of her 
 intention, snatched Mary s steel band forci 
 bly from her hair, and taking it across the 
 room, put it in its accustomed place on its 
 owner s head. Everybody was startled, 
 but Mary rose from her chair quietly, and 
 taking the ornament in one hand and Marm 
 Lisa by the other, she came to Helen s side. 
 
 " I like to have my shining crown in Miss 
 Helen s hair," she said; "it is such pretty 
 curly hair, stroke it softly, Lisa ; she 
 must wear it this morning to please me, and 
 then I will take it again for my own. Dear 
 Miss Helen, who is so sweet and good to 
 the children, I love her," and she kissed 
 her fondly on each cheek. 
 
 Marm Lisa did not attempt to rebel, but 
 she was sullen, and refused her work when 
 it was offered her later. 
 
 Such occurrences were rare, however, for 
 
56 MARM LISA. 
 
 her obliquity always seemed mental rather 
 than moral. 
 
 Straws and bright papers, beads and 
 pretty forms to thread on stout laces, were 
 given her to wean her from her favorite but 
 aimless string-play. There were days of 
 restlessness, when she wandered up and 
 down stairs, and could not be kept in her 
 chair nor persuaded to stand in her place 
 in the circle. There were days, too, when 
 she tore the bright cardboards and glossy 
 weaving mats that ordinarily gave her such 
 keen pleasure; but this carelessness grew 
 more and more infrequent until it ceased 
 altogether, so that it had probably come 
 more from her inability to hold and move 
 the materials and needles properly than 
 from a wanton instinct of destruction; for 
 they would often see the tears drop from 
 her eyes upon her clumsy fingers as she 
 strove to make them obey her feeble behests. 
 At such a moment there was always some 
 one to fling herself with passionate ardor 
 and sympathy into this latest difficulty. A 
 stouter weaving-needle was invented, and a 
 mat of pretty colored morocco substituted 
 for the fragile paper; while the poor inert 
 hands were held and coaxed and strength 
 ened every day by finger gymnastics. 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 57 
 
 As Lisa grew in power Rhoda grew in 
 ingenuity, and failure in any one particular 
 only stimulated her genius of invention the 
 more. Did she spill paste, mucilage, water, 
 on her gingham aprons, and wipe anything 
 and everything on them that came in her 
 way, Rhoda dressed her in daintier ones of 
 white cambric, with a ruffle at the neck and 
 sleeves; the child s pleasure knew no bounds, 
 and she kept the aprons clean. With Mrs. 
 Grubb s permission her hair was cut shorter, 
 and brushed back under a round comb. No 
 regiment of soldiers could have kept the 
 comb in place. It was taken away, and a 
 blue ribbon substituted. She untied the 
 ribbon every five minutes for two days, 
 when Mary circumvented her by sewing a 
 blue ribbon on each sleeve. This seemed 
 to divert her attention from the head-band, 
 and after a week or two she allowed it to 
 remain without interference. Mary gave her 
 low shoes, hoping that the lessened trouble 
 of lacing them would make the task a possi 
 bility. There was no improvement. If she 
 laced them, it was only under supervision, 
 and they were always untied within the hour, 
 the dangling laces tripping her awkward 
 feet. Slippers or old-fashioned shoes with 
 
58 HARM LISA. 
 
 elastic at the side would have been an easy 
 way out of the difficulty, but to Rhoda s 
 mind that would have been a humiliating 
 confession of failure. As a last resort she 
 bought brown shoes and brown laces. 
 
 "If these do not succeed," she said, "I 
 will have red ones made, paint the tips blue, 
 and give her yellow laces ; but I will fix her 
 mind on her feet and arouse her pride in 
 them, or die in the attempt." 
 
 This extreme, fortunately, proved unnec 
 essary, since for some unknown reason the 
 brown foot-gear appealed to Marm Lisa, 
 and she kept the laces tied. The salient 
 peculiarity and encouraging feature of the 
 child s development was that, save in rare 
 cases, she did not slip back into her old 
 habits when the novelty of the remedy wore 
 off ; with her, almost every point gained 
 was a point kept. It was indeed a high 
 Hill Difficulty that she was climbing, so 
 high that had she realized it she would 
 never have taken the first step of her own 
 unaided will; but now the impelling force 
 behind her was so great, and the visions 
 forever leading her on were so beautiful, 
 that she ran nor grew weary, she walked 
 yet did not faint. 
 
HOW THE NEW PLANT GREW. 59 
 
 The other children, even the youngest of 
 them, were more or less interested in the 
 novel enterprise, too, though they scarcely 
 knew the nature of it or how much was at 
 stake. That a human mind was tottering 
 to its fall, and that Mistress Mary was 
 engaged in preventing it, was beyond their 
 ken. They could see certain details, how 
 ever, for they were all one great family of 
 little people, and it was no unaccustomed 
 thing for them to watch a moral conquest, 
 though they had no conception of an intel 
 lectual one. 
 
 Accordingly, there was a shout of triumph 
 from a corner of the room one morning, 
 such a shout that seventy or eighty young 
 sters held their breath to see what was hap 
 pening. 
 
 After weeks upon weeks of torn cards, 
 broken threads, soiled patterns, wrong- 
 stitches, weak hand held in place by strong 
 hand, Marm Lisa had sewed without help, 
 and in one lesson, the outline of a huge red 
 apple ; and there she stood offering her fin 
 ished work to Mistress Mary! The angels 
 in heaven never rejoiced more greatly over 
 the one repentant sinner than the tired shep 
 herdesses over their one poor ewe lamb as 
 
60 MARM LISA. 
 
 she stood there with quivering hands and 
 wet eyes, the first sense of conscious victory 
 written on her inscrutable brow, and within 
 the turbid, clouded brain the memory of a 
 long struggle, and a hint, at least, of the 
 glory she had achieved. 
 
 Khoda took the square of neat cardboard 
 with the precious red circle that meant so 
 much, and ran into the playground with it, 
 hugging it to her heart, and crying and 
 laughing over it like a child. 
 
 When she came back, Mistress Mary put 
 her arm round Lisa s waist and said to the 
 whole great family: "Children, after trying 
 hard for ever so long, Lisa has sewed this 
 lovely picture all by herself. There is not 
 a wrong stitch, and one side is as neat as 
 the other. What shall we say? " 
 
 "Three cheers! The Chinese must go! " 
 shouted Pat Higgins, a patriotic person of 
 five years whose father was an organizer of 
 sand -lot meetings. 
 
 All the grown-ups laughed at this unex 
 pected suggestion, but the cheers were given 
 with a good will, and Marm Lisa, her mind 
 stirred to its depths by the unwonted emo 
 tion, puzzled out the meaning of them and 
 hid it in her heart. 
 
VI. 
 
 FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY. 
 
 THE children were all nearly a year older 
 when Mrs. Grubb one day climbed the 
 flight of wooden steps leading to Marm 
 Lisa s Paradise, and met, as she did so, a 
 procession of Mistress Mary s neophytes 
 who were wending their way homeward. 
 
 The spectacle of a number of persons of 
 either sex, or of both sexes, proceeding in 
 line or grouped as an audience, acted on 
 Mrs. Grubb precisely as the taste of fresh 
 blood is supposed to act on a tiger in cap 
 tivity. At such a moment she had but one 
 impulse, and that was to address the meet 
 ing. The particular subject was not vital, 
 since it was never the subject, but her own 
 desire to talk, that furnished the necessary 
 inspiration. While she was beginning, 
 "Ladies and gentlemen," in her clear, pleas 
 ant voice, her convictions, opinions, views, 
 prejudices, feelings, experiences, all flew 
 from the different corners of what she was 
 
62 HARM LISA. 
 
 pleased to call her brain, and focused them 
 selves on the point in question. 
 
 If the discussion were in a field in which 
 she had made no excursions whatever, that 
 trifling detail did not impose silence upon 
 her. She simply rose and said: "Ladies 
 and gentlemen, though a stranger in your 
 midst, I feel I must say a word of sympathy 
 to you, and a word of encouragement for 
 your cause. It is a good and worthy move 
 ment, and I honor you for upholding it. 
 Often and often have I said to my classes, 
 it matters not what face of truth is revealed 
 to you so long as you get a vision that will 
 help you to bless your fellow men. To 
 bless your fellow men is the great task be 
 fore each and every one of us, and I feel to 
 urge this specially upon occasions like this, 
 when I see a large and influential audience 
 before me. Says Rudyard Kipling, I saw 
 a hundred men on the road to Delhi, and 
 they were all my brothers. Yes, all our 
 brothers ! The brotherhood of man and the 
 sisterhood of woman, those are the subjects 
 that include all others. I am glad to have 
 met with you and to have heard the eloquent 
 words of your speakers. If any of you 
 would like to know more of my work, I will 
 
FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY. 63 
 
 gladly meet you in room A at the close of 
 this meeting." 
 
 She then sat down amid applause. Never 
 did Mrs. S. Cora Grubb cease speaking 
 without at least a ripple of approval that 
 sometimes grew into a positive ovation. 
 What wonder, then, that she mistook her 
 self for an inspired person ? It was easy to 
 understand her popularity with her fellow 
 men. Her eyes were as soft and clear as 
 those of a child, her hair waved prettily off 
 her low serene brow, her figure was plump 
 and womanly, and when her voice trembled 
 with emotion (which in her was a shallow 
 well very near the surface) the charmingest 
 pink color came and went in her cheeks. 
 On such occasions more than one member 
 of the various brotherhoods thought what 
 a cosy wife she would make, if removed 
 from the public arena to the "sweet safe 
 corner of the household fire." To be sure 
 she had not much logic, but plenty of senti 
 ment; rather too great a fondness for hu 
 manity, perhaps, but that was because she 
 had no husband and family of her own to 
 absorb her superfluous sympathy and energy. 
 Mrs. Grubb was not so easily classified as 
 these "brothers" imagined, however, and 
 
64 HARM LISA. 
 
 fortunately for them she had no leanings 
 towards any man s fireside. Mr. Grubb 
 had died in the endeavor to understand her, 
 and it is doubtful whether, had he been 
 offered a second life and another opportu 
 nity, he would have thought the end justi 
 fied the means. 
 
 This criticism, however, applies only to 
 the family circle, for Mrs. Grubb in a hall 
 was ever winning, delightful, and persua 
 sive. If she was illogical, none of her sister 
 women realized it, for they were pretty 
 much of the same chaotic order of mind, 
 though with this difference : that a certain 
 proportion of them were everywhere seeking 
 reasons for their weariness, their unhappi- 
 ness, their poverty, their lack of faith and 
 courage, their unsatisfactory husbands and 
 their disappointing children. These ladies 
 were apt to be a trifle bitter, and much 
 more interested in Equal Suffrage, Temper 
 ance, Cremation, and Edenic Diet than in 
 subjects like Palmistry, Telepathy, and 
 Hypnotism, which generally attracted the 
 vague, speculative, feather - headed ones. 
 These discontented persons were always the 
 most frenzied workers and the most elo 
 quent speakers, and those who were deter- 
 
FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY. 65 
 
 mined to get more rights were mild com 
 pared with those who were determined to 
 avenge their wrongs. There was, of course, 
 no unanimity of belief running through all 
 these Clubs, Classes, Circles, Societies, 
 Orders, Leagues, Chapters, and Unions; 
 but there was one bond of aversion, and 
 that was domestic service of any kind. That 
 no woman could develop or soar properly, 
 and cook, scrub, sweep, dust, wash dishes, 
 mend, or take care of babies at the same 
 time, to defend this proposition they would 
 cheerfully have gone to the stake. They 
 were willing to concede all these sordid tasks 
 as an honorable department of woman s 
 work, but each wanted them to be done by 
 some other woman. 
 
 Mrs. Grubb really belonged to neither of 
 these classes. She was not very keen about 
 more rights, nor very bloodthirsty about 
 her wrongs. She inhabited a kind of serene 
 twilight, the sort that follows an especially 
 pink sunset. She was not wholly clear in 
 her mind about anything, but she was en 
 tirely hopeful about the world and its dispo 
 sition to grow and move in ever ascending 
 spirals. She hated housework as much as 
 any of her followers, although she was sel- 
 
66 HARM LISA. 
 
 dom allowed to do anything for herself. 
 "I ll step in and make your beds, Mrs. 
 Grubb; I know you re tired." "I 11 sweep 
 the front room, Mrs. Grubb; you give 
 yourself out so, I know you need rest." 
 "Let me cook your supper while you get up 
 strength for your lecture ; there are plenty 
 of people to cook, but there s only one Mrs. 
 Grubb ! " These were the tender solicita 
 tions she was ever receiving. 
 
 As for theories, she had small choice. 
 She had looked into almost every device for 
 increasing the sum of human knowledge 
 and hastening the millennium, and she 
 thought them all more or less valuable. 
 Her memory, mercifully, was not a reten 
 tive one, therefore she remembered little of 
 the beliefs she had outgrown; they never 
 left even a deposit in the stretch of wet 
 sand in which they had written themselves. 
 
 She had investigated, or at any rate 
 taught, Delsarte, Physical Culture, Dress- 
 Reform, the Blue - glass Cure, Scientific 
 Physiognomy, Phrenology, Cheiromancy, 
 Astrology, Vegetarianism, Edenic Diet, 
 Single Tax, Evolution, Mental Healing, 
 Christian Science, Spiritualism, Theosophy, 
 and Hypnotism. All these metamorphoses 
 
FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY. 67 
 
 of thought had Mrs. S. Cora Grubb passed 
 through, and was not yet a finished butter 
 fly. Some of the ideas she had left far 
 behind, but she still believed in them as 
 fragments of truth suitable for feeble grow 
 ing souls that could not bear the full light 
 of revelation in one burst. She held honor 
 ary memberships in most of the outgrown 
 societies, attended annual meetings of oth 
 ers, and kept in touch with all the rest by 
 being present at their social reunions. 
 
 One of her present enthusiasms was her 
 "Kipling Brothers," the boys band enlisted 
 under the motto, " I saw a hundred men on 
 the road to Delhi, and they were all my 
 brothers." She believed that there was no 
 salvation for a boy outside of a band. 
 Banded somehow he must be, then badged, 
 beribboned, bannered, and by-lawed. From 
 the moment a boy s mother had left off her 
 bye-lows, Mrs. Grubb wanted him put un 
 der by-laws. She often visited Mistress 
 Mary with the idea that some time she 
 could interest her in one of her thousand 
 schemes ; but this special call was to see if 
 the older children, whose neat handiwork 
 she had seen and admired, could embroider 
 mottoes on cardboard to adorn the Kipling 
 
68 MARM LISA. 
 
 room at an approaching festival, She par 
 ticularly wanted "Look not upon the Wine " 
 done in blood-red upon black, and "Shun 
 the Filthy Weed " in smoke -color on bright 
 green. She had in her hand a card with 
 the points for her annual address noted 
 upon it, for this sort of work she ordinarily 
 did in the horse-cars. These ran : 
 
 1st. Value of individuality, "/saw." 
 
 2d. Value of observation. "I saw." 
 
 3d. Value of numbers. "I saw a hun 
 dred men." 
 
 4th. Importance of belonging to the male 
 sex. It was men who were seen on the 
 road. 
 
 5th. What and where is Delhi? 
 
 6th. Description of the road thither, 
 
 7th. Every boy has his Delhi. 
 
 8th. Are you "on the road?" 
 
 9th. The brotherhood of man. 
 
 10th. The Kipling Brothers Call to 
 Arms. 
 
 She intended to run through the heads of 
 this impassioned oration to Mistress Mary, 
 whom she rather liked ; and, in truth, Mary 
 had difficulty in disliking her, though she 
 thoroughly disapproved of her. She was so 
 amiable, and apparently so susceptible to 
 
FROM GRUBB TO BUTTERFLY. 69 
 
 teaching, that Mary always fancied her on 
 the verge of something better. Her vaga 
 ries, her neglects, and what to Mary s mind 
 were positive inhumanities seemed in a way 
 unconscious. "If I can only get into suffi 
 ciently friendly relations," thought Mary, 
 "so that I can convince her that her first 
 and highest duty lies in the direction of the 
 three children, I believe she will have the 
 heroism to do it!" But in this Mistress 
 Mary s instinct was at fault. Mrs. Grubb 
 took indeed no real cognizance of her imme 
 diate surroundings, but she would not have 
 wished to see near duties any more clearly. 
 Neither had she any sane and healthy inter 
 est in good works of any kind; she simply 
 had a sort of philanthropic hysteria, and 
 her most successful speeches were so many 
 spasms. 
 
VII. 
 
 THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 
 
 "I DON T feel that I can part with Lisa 
 now, just as she s beginning to be a help to 
 me," argued Mrs. Grubb, shortly after she 
 had been welcomed and ensconced in a rock 
 ing-chair. " As Madame Goldmarker says, 
 nobody else in the world would have given 
 her a home these four years, and a good 
 many wouldn t have had her round the 
 house." 
 
 "That is true," replied Mary, "and your 
 husband must have been a very good man, 
 from all you tell me, Mrs. Grubb." 
 
 "Good enough, but totally uninterest 
 ing," said that lady laconically. 
 
 "Well, putting aside the question as to 
 whether goodness ought to be totally unin 
 teresting, you say that Lisa s mother left 
 Mr. Grubb three hundred dollars for her 
 food and clothing, and that she has been 
 ever since a willing servant, absolutely de 
 voted to your interests." 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 71 
 
 " We never put a cent of the three hun 
 dred dollars into our own pockets," ex 
 plained Mrs. Grubb. "Mr. Grubb was 
 dreadfully opposed to my doing it, but 
 every penny of it went to freeing our reli 
 gious society from debt. It was a case of 
 the greatest good of the greatest number, 
 and I didn t flinch. I thought it was a 
 good deal more important that the Army of 
 Present Perfection should have a roof over 
 its head than that Lisa Bennett should be 
 fed and clothed ; that is, if both could not 
 be done." 
 
 "I don t know the creed of the Army, 
 but it seems to me your Presently Perfect 
 soldiers would have been rather uncomfor 
 table under their roof, if Lisa Bennett had 
 been naked and starving outside." 
 
 "Oh, it would never have come to that," 
 responded Mrs. Grubb easily. "There is 
 plenty of money in the world, and it belongs 
 equally to the whole human race. I don t 
 recognize anybody s right to have a dollar 
 more than I have; but Mr. Grubb could 
 never accept any belief that had been held 
 less than a thousand years, and before he 
 died he gave some money to a friend of his, 
 and told him to pay me ten dollars every 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 month towards Lisa s board. Untold gold 
 could never pay for what my pride has suf 
 fered in having her, and if she hadn t been 
 so useful I couldn t have done it, I don t 
 pretend that I could. She s an offense to 
 the eye." 
 
 "Not any longer," said Mary proudly. 
 
 "Well, she was, up to* a few months ago; 
 but she would always do anything for the 
 twins, and though they are continually get 
 ting into mischief, she never lets any harm 
 come to them, not so much as a scratch. 
 If I d taken a brighter child, she would 
 have been forever playing on her own ac 
 count and thinking of her own pleasure ; but 
 if you once get an idea into Lisa s head of 
 what you expect her to do, she will go on 
 doing it to the end of the world, and wild 
 horses couldn t keep her from it." 
 
 "It s a pity more of us hadn t that vir 
 tue of obedience to a higher law." 
 
 "Well, perhaps it is, and perhaps it 
 isn t; it s a sign of a very weak mind." 
 
 "Or a very strong one," retorted Mary. 
 
 "There are natural leaders and natural 
 followers," remarked Mrs. Grubb smilingly, 
 as she swayed to and fro in Mary s rocking- 
 chair. Her smile, like a ballet dancer s, 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 73 
 
 had no connection with, nor relation to, the 
 matter of her speech or her state of feeling ; 
 it was what a watchmaker would call a 
 detached movement. "I can t see," said 
 she, "that it is my duty to send Lisa away 
 to be taught, just when I need her most. 
 My development is a good deal more impor 
 tant than hers." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why? Because I have a vocation and 
 a mission; because, if I should falter or 
 faint by the wayside, hundreds of women 
 who depend on rne for inspiration would fall 
 back into error and suffer permanent loss 
 and injury." 
 
 "Do you suppose they really would?" 
 asked Mary rather maliciously, anxious if 
 possible to ruffle the surface of Mrs. Grubb s 
 exasperating placidity. "Or would they, 
 of course after a long period of grief -stricken 
 apathy, attach themselves to somebody else s 
 classes? " 
 
 "They might," allowed Mrs. Grubb, in 
 a tone of hurt self-respect, " though you 
 must know, little as you ve seen of the 
 world, that no one woman has just the same 
 revelation as any other, and that there are 
 some who are born to interpret truth to the 
 
74 MARM LISA. 
 
 multitude. I can say in all humility that 
 it has been so with me from a child. I ve 
 always had a burning desire to explore the 
 secret chambers of Thought, always yearned 
 to understand and explain the universe." 
 
 "I have never tried to explain it," sighed 
 Mary a little wearily; "one is so busy try 
 ing to keep one s little corner clean and 
 sweet and pleasant, a helpful place where 
 sad and tired souls can sit down and rest." 
 
 "Who wants to sit down and rest? Not 
 I !" exclaimed Mrs. Grubb. "But then, 
 I m 110 criterion, I have such an active 
 mind." 
 
 "There are just a few passive virtues," 
 said Mary teasingly . " We must remember 
 that activity does n t always make for good; 
 sometimes it is unrest, disintegration; not 
 growth, Mrs. Grubb, but fermentation." 
 
 Mrs. Grubb took out a small blank-book 
 and made a note, for she had an ear for any 
 sentence that might be used in a speech. 
 
 "That is true. Distrust the activity 
 which is not growth, but fermentation : 
 that will just hit some ladies in my classes, 
 and it comes right in with something I am 
 going to say this evening. We have a Diet 
 Congress here this week, and there s a good 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 75 
 
 deal of feeling and dispute between the 
 various branches. I have two delegates 
 stopping with me, and they have n t spoken 
 to each other since yesterday morning, nor 
 sat down to eat at the same table. I shall 
 do all I can, as the presiding officer, to 
 keep things pleasant at the meetings, but it 
 will be difficult. You ve never been in 
 public life and can t understand it, but you 
 see there are women among the delegates 
 who ve suffered the tyranny of man so long 
 that they will cook anything their husbands 
 demand; women who believe in eating any 
 kind of food, and hold that the principal 
 trouble lies in bad cooking; women who 
 will give up meat, but still indulge in all 
 sorts of cakes, pastries, and kickshaws ; and 
 women who are strong on temperance in 
 drink, but who see no need of temperance 
 in food. The whole question of diet reform 
 is in an awful state, and a Congress is the 
 only way to settle it." 
 
 "How do men stand on the diet ques 
 tion?" asked Mary, with a twinkle in her 
 eye. 
 
 "They don t stand at all," answered Mrs. 
 Grubb promptly. "They sit right still, and 
 some of them lie down flat, you might say, 
 
76 MARM LISA. 
 
 whenever it s mentioned. They 11 do even 
 more for temperance than they will for 
 reformed diet, though goodness knows 
 they re fond enough of drinking. The 
 Edenites number about sixty-seven in this 
 city, and nine is the largest number of gen 
 tlemen that we ve been able to interest. 
 Those nine are the husbands and sons of 
 the lady members, and at the next meeting 
 two of them are going to be expelled for 
 backsliding. I declare, if I was a man, 
 I d be ashamed to confess that I was all 
 stomach; but that s what most of them are. 
 Not that it s easy work to be an Edenite; 
 it s impossible to any but a highly spiritual 
 nature. I have been on the diet for six 
 months, and nothing but my position as 
 vice-president of the society, and my desire 
 to crush the body and release the spirit, 
 could have kept me faithful. I don t pre 
 tend to like it, but that does n t make me 
 disloyal. There s nothing I enjoy better 
 than a good cut of underdone beef, with 
 plenty of dish gravy; I love nice tender 
 porterhouse steaks with mushrooms; I love 
 thick mutton-chops broiled over a hot fire : 
 but I can t believe in them, and my con 
 science won t allow me to eat them. Do 
 you believe in meat? " 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 77 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "I don t see why you say certainly. 
 You would be a good deal better off without 
 it. You are filling yourself full of carnal, 
 brutal, murderous passions every time you 
 eat it. The people who eat meat are not 
 half so elevated nor half so teachable as the 
 Edenites." 
 
 "The Edenites are possibly too weak and 
 hungry to resist instruction," said Mary. 
 
 "They are neither weak nor hungry," 
 replied their vice-president, with dignity. 
 "They eat milk, and stewed fruit, and all 
 the edible grains nicely boiled. It stands 
 to reason that if you can subdue your 
 earthly, devilish, sensual instincts on any 
 thing, you can do it on a diet like that. 
 You can t fancy an angel or a Mahatma 
 devouring underdone beef." 
 
 "No," agreed Mistress Mary; "but for 
 that matter, the spectacle of an angel eating 
 dried-apple sauce does n t appeal to my 
 imagination." 
 
 "It s no joking matter," said Mrs. 
 Grubb, with real tears in her eyes. "It 
 was my interest in Theosophy that brought 
 me to the Edenic diet. I have good and 
 sufficient motives for denying my appetite, 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 for I ve got a certain goal to reach, and 
 I m in earnest." 
 
 "Then here s my hand, and I respect 
 you for it. Oh, how I should like a hot 
 mutton-chop at this moment ! Do forgive 
 
 "I forgive you, because I can see you act 
 up to all the light that has been revealed to 
 you. I don t know as I ought to be proud 
 because I see so much truth. My classes 
 tell me I get these marvelous revelations 
 because I m so open-minded. Now Mr. 
 Grubb would n t and could n t bear discus 
 sion of any sort. His soul never grew, for 
 he wouldn t open a chink where a new idea 
 might creep in. He d always accompany 
 me to all my meetings (such advantages as 
 that man had and missed !), and sometimes 
 he d take the admission tickets; but when 
 the speaking began, he d shut the door and 
 stay out in the entry by himself till it was 
 time to wait upon me home. Do you be 
 lieve in vaccination? " 
 
 "Certainly." 
 
 "Well, it passes my comprehension how 
 you can be so sure of your beliefs. You d 
 better come and hear some of the arguments 
 on the opposite side. I am the secretary 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 79 
 
 of the Anti- Vaccination League." (Mrs. 
 Grubb was especially happy in her anti- 
 societies ; negatives seemed to give her more 
 scope for argument.) "I say to my classes, 
 You must not blame those to whom higher 
 truths do not appeal, for refusing to believe 
 in that which they cannot understand; but 
 you may reprove them for decrying or ridi 
 culing those laws or facts of nature which 
 they have never investigated with an un 
 prejudiced mind. Well, I must be going. 
 I ve sat longer than I meant to, this room 
 is so peaceful and comfortable." 
 
 "But what about Lisa s future? We 
 have n t settled that, although we ve had 
 a most interesting and illuminating conver 
 sation." 
 
 "Why, I ve told you how I feel about 
 her, and you must respect my feeling. The 
 world can only grow when each person 
 allows his fellow man complete liberty of 
 thought and action. I ve kept the child 
 four years, and now when my good care 
 and feeding, together with the regular work 
 and early hours I ve always prescribed, 
 have begun to show their fruits in her im 
 proved condition, you want she should be 
 put in some institution. Why is n t she 
 
80 MARM LISA. 
 
 doing well enough as she is? I m sure 
 you ve had a wonderful influence over her." 
 
 "Nothing could induce me to lose sight 
 of her entirely," said Mistress Mary, u but 
 we feel now that she is ready to take the 
 next step. She needs a skilled physician 
 who is master both of body and mind, as 
 well as a teacher who is capable of follow 
 ing out his principles. I will see to all 
 that, if you will only give me the privilege." 
 
 Mrs. Grubb sank down in the rocking- 
 chair in despair. "Don t I need some con 
 sideration as well as that little imbecile? 
 Am I, with my ambitions and aspirations, 
 to be forever hampered by these three night 
 mares of children? Oh, if I could once 
 get an astral body, I would stay in it, you 
 may be sure! " 
 
 "You do not absolutely need Lisa your 
 self," argued Mary. "It is the twins to 
 whom she has been indispensable. Provide 
 for them in some way, and she is freed from 
 a responsibility for which she is not and 
 never was fit. It is a miracle that some 
 tragedy has not come out of this daily com 
 panionship of three such passionate, irre 
 sponsible creatures." 
 
 "Some tragedy will come out of it yet," 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 81 
 
 said Mrs. Grubb gloomily, " if I am not 
 freed from the shackles that keep me in 
 daily slavery. The twins are as likely to 
 go to the gallows as anywhere ; and as for 
 Lisa, she would be a good deal better off 
 dead than alive, as Mrs. Sylvester says." 
 
 "That is n t for us to decide," said Mis 
 tress Mary soberly. "I might have been 
 careless and impertinent enough to say it 
 a year ago, but not now. Lisa has all 
 along been the victim of cruel circumstances. 
 Wherever she has been sinned against 
 through ignorance, it is possible, barely 
 possible, that the fault may be atoned for ; 
 but any neglect of duty now would be a 
 criminal offense. It does not behoove us to 
 be too scornful when we remember that the 
 taint (fortunately a slight one) transmitted 
 to poor little Lisa existed in greater or less 
 degree in Handel and Moliere, Julius 
 Csesar, Napoleon, Petrarch, and Moham 
 med. The world is a good deal richer for 
 them, certainly." 
 
 Mrs. Grubb elevated her head, the light 
 of interest dawned in her eye, and she 
 whipped her note-book out of her pocket. 
 "Is that a fact?" she asked excitedly. 
 " It is a fact." 
 
82 MARM LISA. 
 
 "Is it generally known? " 
 
 "It must be known by all who have any 
 interest in the education of defective per 
 sons, since it touches one of the bugbears 
 which they have to fight." 
 
 "Is there any society in this city devoted 
 to the study of such problems? " 
 
 " There is a society which is just on the 
 point of opening an institution for the train 
 ing of defective children." 
 
 Mrs. Grubb s face fell, and her hand 
 relaxed its grasp upon the pencil. (If 
 there was anything she enjoyed, it was the 
 sensation of being a pioneer in any move 
 ment.) Presently she brightened again. 
 
 "If it is just starting," she said, "then 
 it must need more members, and speakers 
 to stir up the community. Now I am cal 
 culated, by constant association with a child 
 of this character, to be of signal service to 
 the cause. Not many persons have had my 
 chance to observe phenomena. Just give 
 me a letter to the president, have they 
 elected officers yet? where do they meet? 
 and tell him I 11 call on him and throw 
 all the weight of my influence on his side. 
 It s wonderful ! Handel, Moliere, Buddha, 
 was it Buddha? Caesar, Petrarch, and 
 
THE COMET AND THE FIXED STAR. 83 
 
 Wellington, no, not Wellington. Never 
 mind, I 11 get a list from you to-morrow 
 and look it all up, it s perfectly marvel 
 ous! And I have one of this great, un 
 happy, suffering class in my own family, 
 one who may yet be transformed into an 
 Elizabeth Browning or a Joan of Arc ! 
 
 Mistress Mary sighed in her heart. She 
 learned more of Mrs. Grubb with every 
 interview, and she knew that her enthusi 
 asms were as discouraging as her apathies. 
 
 "How unlucky that I mentioned Napo 
 leon, Caesar, and Mohammed! " she 
 thought. "I shall be haunted now by the 
 fear that she will go on a lecturing-tour 
 through the country, and exhibit poor Lisa 
 as an interesting example. Mrs. Grubb s 
 mind is like nothing so much as a crazy- 
 quilt." 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE YOUNG MINISTERS PSYCHOLOGICAL 
 OBSERVATIONS. 
 
 MRS. GRUBB S interest in the education 
 of the defective classes was as short-lived 
 as it was ardent. One interview with the 
 president of the society convinced her that 
 he was not a person to be "helped " accord 
 ing to her understanding of the term. She 
 thought him a self-sufficient gentleman, in 
 flexible in demeanor, and inhospitable to 
 anybody s ideas or anybody s hobbies but 
 his own. She resented his praise of Mis 
 tress Mary and Rhoda, and regarded it ful 
 some flattery when he alluded to their ex 
 periment with Marm Lisa as one of the 
 most interesting and valuable in his whole 
 experience; saying that he hardly knew 
 which to admire and venerate the more, the 
 genius of the teachers, or the devotion, 
 courage, and docility of the pupil. 
 
 In the summer months Lisa had gone to 
 the country with Mistress Mary and Edith, 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 85 
 
 who were determined never to lose sight of 
 her until the end they sought was actually 
 attained. There, in the verdant freshness 
 of that new world, Lisa experienced a 
 strange exaltation of the senses. Every 
 wooded path unfolded treasures of leaf, 
 bud, blossom, and brier, and of beautiful 
 winged things that crept and rustled among 
 the grasses. There was the ever new sur 
 prise of the first wild flowers, the abounding 
 mystery of the bird s note and the brook s 
 song, the daily greeting of bees and butter 
 flies, frogs and fishes, field mice and squir 
 rels; so that the universe, which in the 
 dead past had been dreary and without 
 meaning, suddenly became warm and 
 friendly, and she, the alien, felt a sense of 
 kinship with all created things. 
 
 Helen had crossed the continent to im 
 bibe the wisdom of the East, and had 
 brought back stores of knowledge to spend 
 in Lisa s service; but Rhoda s sacrifice was 
 perhaps the most complete, for Mrs. Grubb 
 having at first absolutely refused to part 
 with Lisa, Ehoda had flung herself into the 
 breach and taken the twins to her mother s 
 cottage in the mountains. 
 
 She came up the broad steps, on a certain 
 
86 HARM LISA. 
 
 appointed day in August, leading her 
 charges into Mistress Mary s presence. 
 They were clean, well dressed, and some 
 what calm in demeanor. 
 
 "You may go into the playground," she 
 said, after the greetings were over; "and 
 remember that there are sharp spikes on 
 the high fence by the pepper-tree." 
 
 "Mary," she went on impressively, clos 
 ing the doors and glancing about the room 
 to see if there were any listeners, "Mary, 
 those children have been with me eight 
 weeks, and I do not like them. 
 What are you going to do with me ? Wait, 
 I have n t told you the whole truth, I 
 dislike them actively. As for my mother, 
 she is not committed to any theory about 
 the essential integrity of infancy, and she 
 positively abhors them." 
 
 "Then they are no more likable in the 
 bosom of the family than they have been 
 here?" asked Mary, in a tone of "disap 
 pointment. 
 
 "More likable? They are less so! Do 
 you see any change in me, a sort of spir 
 itual effulgence, a saintly radiance, such as 
 comes after a long spell of persistent virtue ? 
 Because there ought to be, if my summer 
 has served its purpose." 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 87 
 
 " Poor dear rosy little martyr ! Sit down 
 and tell me all about it." 
 
 44 Well, we have kept a log, but " 
 
 " We ? What, Rhoda, did you drag 
 your poor mother into the experiment?" 
 
 "Mother? No, she generally locked 
 herself in her room when the twins were 
 indoors, but well, of course I had help 
 of one sort and another with them. I have 
 held to your plan of discipline pretty well; 
 at any rate, I have n t administered corporal 
 punishment, although if I had whipped them 
 whenever they actually needed it, I should 
 have worn out all the young minister s slip 
 pers." 
 
 Mary groaned. "Then there was an 
 other young minister? It does n t make 
 any difference, Rhoda, whether you spend 
 your summers in the woods or by the sea, 
 in the valleys or on the mountains, there is 
 always a young minister. Have all the old 
 ones perished off the face of the earth, 
 pray? And what do the young ones see in 
 you, you dear unregenerate, that they per 
 sist in following you about, threatening my 
 peace of mind and your future career? 
 Well, goon!" 
 
 "Debarred from the use of the persuasive 
 
88 HARM LISA. 
 
 but obsolete slipper," Ehoda continued 
 evasively, "I tried milder means of disci 
 pline, solitary confinement for one ; not 
 very much, you know, only seventeen 
 times in eight weeks. I hope you don t 
 object to that ? Of course it was in a pleas 
 ant room with southern exposure, good 
 view and good ventilation, a thermometer, 
 picture-books, and all that. It would have 
 worked better if the twins had n t always 
 taken the furniture to pieces, and mother is 
 so fussy about anything of that sort. She 
 finally suggested the winter bedroom for 
 Atlantic s incarceration, as it has nothing 
 in it but a huge coal-stove enveloped in a 
 somewhat awe-inspiring cotton sheet. I 
 put in a comfortable low chair, a checker 
 board, and some books, fixing the time limit 
 at half an hour. By the way, Mary, that s 
 such a pretty idea of yours to leave the door 
 unlocked, and tell the children to come out 
 of their own accord whenever they feel at 
 peace with the community. I tried it, 
 oh, I always try your pretty ideas first; but 
 I had scarcely closed the door before Pacific 
 was out of it again, a regenerated human 
 being according to her own account. But 
 to return to Atlantic. I went to him when 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 89 
 
 the clock struck, only to discover that he 
 had broken in the circles of isinglass round 
 the body of the coal-stove, removed the 
 ashes with a book, got the dampers out of 
 order, and taken the doors off the hinges! 
 I am sure Mrs. Grubb is right to keep them 
 on bread and milk and apple sauce; a 
 steady diet of beef and mutton would give 
 them a simply unconquerable energy. Oh, 
 laugh as you may, I could never have lived 
 through the ordeal if it had n t been for the 
 young minister! " 
 
 "Do you mean that he became interested 
 in the twins?" 
 
 " Oh yes ! very deeply interested. You 
 have heard me speak of him: it was Mr. 
 Fielding." 
 
 "Why, Rhoda, he was the last summer s 
 minister, the one who preached at the sea 
 shore." 
 
 "Certainly; but he was only supplying 
 a pulpit there ; now he has his own parish. 
 He is taking up a course of child-study, 
 and asked me if he was at liberty to use 
 the twins for psychological observations. I 
 assented most gratefully, thinking, you 
 know, that he could n t study them unless 
 he kept them with him a good deal ; but he 
 
90 HARM LISA. 
 
 counted without his host, as you can imag 
 ine. He lives at the hotel until his cottage 
 is finished, and the first thing I knew he 
 had hired a stout nursemaid as his contri 
 bution to the service of humanity. I think 
 he was really sorry for me, for I was so 
 confined I could scarcely ever ride, or drive, 
 or play tennis ; and besides, he simply had 
 to have somebody to hold the children while 
 he observed them. We succeeded better 
 after the nurse came, and we all had de 
 lightful walks and conversations together, 
 just a nice little family party! The hotel 
 people called Atlantic the Cyclone and 
 Pacific the Warrior. Sometimes strangers 
 took us for the children s parents, and that 
 was embarrassing; not that I mind being 
 mistaken for a parent, but I decline being- 
 credited, or discredited, with the maternity 
 of those imps! " 
 
 "They are altogether new in my expe 
 rience," confessed Mary. 
 
 "That is just what the young minister 
 said." 
 
 "Will he keep up his psychological in 
 vestigation during the autumn?" Mary in 
 quired. 
 
 "He really has no material there." 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 91 
 
 "What will he do then, carry it on by 
 correspondence ? " 
 
 "No, that is always unsatisfactory. I 
 fancy he will come here occasionally : it is 
 the most natural place, and he is especially 
 eager to meet you." 
 
 "Of course!" said Mistress Mary, recit 
 ing provokingly : 
 
 " My lyre I tune, my voice I raise, 
 
 But with my numbers mix my sighs, 
 And whilst I singEuphelia s praise 
 I fix my soul on Chloe s eyes. 
 
 How delightful," she added, "how inspir 
 ing it is to see a young man so devoted to 
 science, particularly to this neglected sci 
 ence ! I shall be charmed to know more of 
 his psychology and observe his observa 
 tions." 
 
 "He is extremely clever." 
 
 " I have no doubt of it from what you tell 
 me, both clever and ingenious." 
 
 "And his cottage is lovely; it will be 
 finished and furnished by next summer, 
 Queen Anne, you know." 
 
 Now this was so purely irrelevant that 
 there was a wicked hint of intention about it, 
 and though Mistress Mary was smiling (and 
 quaking) in the very depths of her heart, 
 
92 HARM LISA. 
 
 she cruelly led back the conversation into 
 safe educational channels. "Isn t it curi 
 ous," she said, "that we should have thought 
 Lisa, not the twins, the impossible problem ? 
 Yet, as I have written you, her solution is 
 something to which we can look forward 
 with reasonable confidence. It is scarcely 
 eighteen months, but the work accomplished 
 is almost incredible, even to me, and I have 
 watched and counted every step." 
 
 "The only explanation must be this," 
 said Khoda, "that her condition was largely 
 the fruit of neglect and utter lack of com 
 prehension. The state of mind and body 
 in which she came to us was out of all pro 
 portion to the moving cause, when we dis 
 covered it. Her mother thought she would 
 be an imbecile, the Grubbs treated her as 
 one, and nobody cared to find out what she 
 really was or could be." 
 
 "Her brain had been writ upon by the 
 4 moving finger, " quoted Mary, "though 
 the writing was not graved so deep but that 
 love and science could erase it. You re 
 member the four lines in Omar Khayyam? 
 
 " The moving finger writes; and, having writ, 
 Moves on: nor all your piety nor Avit 
 
 Shall lure it back to cancel half a line, 
 Nor all your tears wash out a word of it. " 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 93 
 
 "Edith says I will hardly know her," 
 said Rhoda. 
 
 "It is true. The new physician is a 
 genius, and physically and outwardly she 
 has changed more in the last three months 
 than in the preceding year. She dresses 
 herself neatly now, braids her own hair, and 
 ties her ribbons prettily. Edith has kept 
 up her gymnastics, and even taught her to 
 row and play nine -pins. For the first time 
 in my life, Rhoda, I can fully understand 
 a mother s passion for a crippled, or a 
 blind, or a defective child. I suppose it 
 was only Lisa s desperate need that drew 
 us to her at first. We all loved and pitied 
 her, even at the very height of her afflic 
 tion; but now she fascinates me. I know 
 no greater pleasure than the daily miracle 
 of her growth. She is to me the sister I 
 never had, the child I never shall have. 
 When we think of our success with this 
 experiment, we must try to keep our faith 
 in human nature, even under the trying 
 ordeal of the twins." 
 
 "My faith in human nature is absolutely 
 intact," answered Rhoda; "the trouble is 
 that the Warrior and the Cyclone are not 
 altogether human. Atlantic is the cold- 
 
94 MARM LISA. 
 
 est creature I ever knew, so cold that 
 he could stand the Shadrach-Meshech-and- 
 Abediiego test with impunity; Pacific is 
 hot, so hot-tempered that one can hardly 
 touch her without being scorched. If I 
 had money enough to conduct an expensive 
 experiment, I would separate them, and 
 educate Pacific at the North Pole and 
 Atlantic in the tropics." 
 
 "If they are not distinctly human, we 
 must allow them a few human virtues at 
 least," said Mary; "for example, their loy 
 alty to each other. Pacific, always at war 
 with the community, seldom hurts her bro 
 ther; Atlantic, selfish and grasping with 
 all the world, shares generously with his 
 sister. We must remember, too, that Lisa s 
 care has been worse than nothing for them, 
 notwithstanding its absolute fidelity, and 
 their dependence has been a positive injury 
 to her. There! she has just come into 
 the playground with Edith. Will wonders 
 never cease? Pacific is embracing her 
 knees, and Atlantic allows himself to be 
 hugged! " 
 
 Marm Lisa was indeed beside herself 
 with joy at the meeting. She clung to the 
 infant rebels, stroked their hair, admired 
 
PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 95 
 
 their aprons, their clean hands, their new 
 boots; and, on being smartly slapped by 
 Atlantic for putting the elastic of his hat 
 behind his ears, kissed his hand as if it had 
 offered a caress. "He s so little," she said 
 apologetically, looking up with wet eyes to 
 Edith, who stood near. 
 
IX. 
 
 HARM LISA S QUEST. 
 
 IT was not long after this conversation 
 that the twins awoke one morning with a 
 very frenzy of adventure upon them. It 
 was accompanied by a violent reaction 
 against all the laws of God and man, and 
 a desire to devour the tree of knowledge, 
 fruit, limbs, and trunk, no matter at what 
 cost. 
 
 We have no means of knowing whether 
 there was an excess of electricity in the 
 atmosphere, whether their youthful livers 
 were disordered, or whether the Evil One 
 was personally conducting the day s exer 
 cises; judged by the light of subsequent 
 events, all of these suppositions might easily 
 have been true. During the morning they 
 so demeaned themselves that all Mistress 
 Mary s younger neophytes became apostates 
 to the true faith, and went over in a body 
 to the theory of the total depravity of un- 
 baptized infants. 
 
MARM LISA S QUEST. 97 
 
 In the afternoon they did not appear, nor 
 did Harm Lisa. This was something that 
 had never occurred before, save when Pacific 
 had a certain memorable attack of mumps 
 that would have carried off any child who 
 was fitted for a better world, or one who 
 was especially beloved. 
 
 u Do you suppose anything is wrong?" 
 asked Mary nervously. 
 
 "Of course not," said Edith. " I remem 
 ber seeing Lisa in the playground at one 
 o clock, but my impression is that she was 
 alone, and stayed only a moment. At any 
 rate, I was very busy and did not speak to 
 her. Mrs. Grubb has probably taken the 
 twins to have their hair cut, or something 
 of that sort." 
 
 "What a ridiculous suggestion!" ex 
 claimed Rhoda. "You know perfectly well 
 that Mrs. Grubb would never think of cut 
 ting their hair, if it swept the earth! She 
 may possibly have taken them to join a 
 band; they must be getting to a proper 
 age for membership. At any rate, I will 
 call there and inquire, on my way home, 
 although I can never talk to Mrs. Grubb 
 two minutes without wanting to shake her." 
 Rhoda made her promised visit, but the 
 
98 HARM LISA. 
 
 house was closed, and the neighbors knew 
 nothing of the whereabouts of the children 
 beyond the fact that Mrs. Grubb was seen 
 talking to them as she went into the yard, 
 a little after twelve o clock. Ehoda natu 
 rally concluded, therefore, that Edith s 
 supposition must be correct, and that Mrs. 
 Grubb had for once indulged in a family 
 excursion. 
 
 Such was not the case, however. After 
 luncheon, Marm Lisa had washed the twins 
 hands and faces in the back yard as usual, 
 and left them for an instant to get a towel 
 from the kitchen. When she returned, she 
 looked blankly about, for there was no sign 
 of the two dripping faces and the uplifted 
 streaming hands. They had a playful habit 
 of hiding from her, knowing that in no 
 other way could they make her so unhappy ; 
 so she stood still for some moments, calling 
 them, at first sharply, then piteously, but 
 with no result. She ran to the front gate : 
 it was closed; the rope-fastening was out of 
 reach, and plainly too complicated even for 
 their preternatural powers. She hurried 
 back to the house, and searched every room 
 in a bewildered sort of fashion, finding 
 nothing. As she came out again, her eye 
 
HARM LISA S QUEST. 99 
 
 caught sight of a kitchen chair in the corner 
 of the yard. They had climbed the picket 
 fence, then. Yes; Atlantic, while availing 
 himself of its unassuming aid, had left a 
 clue in a fragment of his trousers. She 
 opened the gate, and ran breathlessly along 
 the streets to that Garden of Eden where 
 joy had always hitherto awaited her. Some 
 instinct of fear or secrecy led her to go 
 quietly through all the rooms and search 
 the playground, without telling any one of 
 her trouble. That accomplished fruitlessly, 
 she fled home again, in the vain hope of 
 finding the children in some accustomed 
 haunt overlooked in her first search. She 
 began to be thoroughly alarmed now, and 
 thoroughly confused. With twitching hands 
 and nervous shaking of the head, she hur 
 ried through the vacant rooms, growing 
 more and more aimless in her quest. She 
 climbed on a tall bureau and looked in a 
 tiny medicine cupboard; then under the 
 benches and behind the charts in the parlor ; 
 even under the kitchen sink, among the 
 pots and pans, and in the stove, where she 
 poked tremulously in the ashes. Her new 
 found wit seemed temporarily to have de 
 serted her, and she was a pitiable thing as 
 
100 HARM LISA. 
 
 she wandered about, her breath coming in 
 long-drawn sighs, with now and then a half- 
 stifled sob. 
 
 Suddenly she darted into the street again. 
 Perhaps they had followed their aunt Cora. 
 Distance had no place in her terror-stricken 
 heart. She traversed block after block, 
 street after street, until she reached Poca- 
 hontas Hall, a building and locality she 
 knew well. She crept softly up the main 
 stairs, and from the landing, slipped into 
 the gallery above. Mrs. Grubb sat in the 
 centre of the stage, with a glass of water, 
 a bouquet of roses, and a bundle of papers 
 and tracts on the table by her side. In the 
 audience were twenty or thirty women and 
 a dozen men, their laps filled, and their 
 pockets bulging, with propaganda. They 
 stood at intervals to ask superfluous or 
 unanswerable questions, upon which Mrs. 
 Grubb would rise and reply, with cheeks 
 growing pink and pinker, with pleasant 
 smile and gracious manner, and a voice 
 fairly surcharged with conviction. Most 
 of the ladies took notes, and a girl with a 
 receding chin was seated at a small table in 
 front of the platform, making a steno 
 graphic report. 
 
HARM LISA S QUEST. 101 
 
 All this Marm Lisa saw, but her eyes 
 rested on nothing she longed to see. Mrs. 
 Grubb s lecture-voice rose and fell melodi 
 ously, floating up to her balcony heights in 
 a kind of echo that held the tone, but not 
 the words. The voice made her drowsy, 
 for she was already worn out with emotion, 
 but she roused herself with an effort, and 
 stole down the stairs to wander into the 
 street again. Ah, there was an idea! The 
 coat-shop ! Why had she not thought of it 
 before ? 
 
 The coat-shop was a sort of clothing 
 manufactory on a small scale, a tall, narrow 
 building four stories high, where she had 
 often gone with Atlantic and Pacific. There 
 were sewing-machines on the ground floor, 
 the cutters and pressers worked in the mid 
 dle stories, and at the top were the finishers. 
 It was neither an extensive nor an exciting 
 establishment, and its only fascination lay 
 in the fact that the workwomen screamed 
 with laughter at the twins conversation, 
 and after leading them to their utmost 
 length, teasing and goading them into a 
 towering passion, would stuff them with 
 nuts or dates or cheap sweetmeats. The 
 coat-shop was two or three miles from the 
 
102 MAR M LISA. 
 
 hall, and it was closing-time and quite dark 
 when Lisa arrived. She came out of the 
 door after having looked vainly in every 
 room, and sat down dejectedly in the en 
 trance, with her weary head leaning against 
 the wall. There was but a moment s respite 
 for her, for the manager came out of his 
 office, and stumbling over her in the dusk, 
 took her by the shoulders and pushed her 
 into the street with an oath. 
 
 "Go and sit on your own doorstep, can t 
 you," he muttered, "and not make me 
 break my legs over you! " 
 
 She was too spent to run any farther. 
 She dragged her heavy feet along slowly, 
 almost unconsciously, neither knowing nor 
 caring whither they led her. Home she 
 could not, dared not go, bearing that heavy 
 burden of remorse! Mrs. Grubb would 
 ask for Atlantic and Pacific, and then what 
 would become of her? Mr. Grubb would 
 want to give Pacific her milk. No, Mr. 
 Grubb was dead. There! she hadn t 
 looked in the perambulator. No, there 
 wasn t any perambulator. That was dead, 
 too, and gone away with Mr. Grubb. 
 There used to be babies, two babies, in the 
 perambulator. What had become of them ? 
 
MARM LISA S QUEST. 103 
 
 Were they lost, too? And the umbrella 
 that she used to hold until her arm ached, 
 and the poor pale weeping mother always 
 lying on a bed, were they all gone to 
 gether ? Her head buzzed with worrying, un 
 related thoughts, so that she put up her 
 hands and held it in place on her shoulders 
 as she shuffled wearily along. A heavy 
 dripping mist began to gather and fall, and 
 she shivered in the dampness, huddling her 
 self together and leaning against the houses 
 for a shelter. She sat down on the curb 
 stone and tried to think, staring haggardly 
 at the sign 011 the corner fruit-shop. In 
 that moment she suddenly forgot the reason 
 of her search. She had lost what? She 
 could not go home to Eden Place, but why ? 
 Oh yes! it came to her now: there was 
 something about a perambulator, but it all 
 seemed vague to her. Suddenly a lamp 
 lighter put his ladder against a post in front 
 of her, and climbing up nimbly lighted the 
 sas-iet inside of the glass frame. It shone 
 
 o J 
 
 full on a flight of broad steps, a picture so 
 much a part of her life-dream that she 
 would go up to the very gate of heaven with 
 its lines burned into her heart and brain. 
 She crept up and turned the knob of the 
 
104 HARM LISA. 
 
 outer door. It was unlocked, and she stole 
 into the inner room, the Paradise, place of 
 joy and sweet content, heart s rest, soul s 
 heaven, love s own abode. The very atmo 
 sphere soothed her. She heard the janitress 
 clatter through the halls, lock the door, and 
 descend the stairs to her own rooms in the 
 basement. The light from the street lamps 
 shone in at the two end windows, so that 
 the room was not in utter darkness. She 
 would lie down here and die with Mr. 
 Grubb and the babies and the umbrella. 
 Atlantic and Pacific would be sure to come 
 back ; nobody who had ever known it could 
 live without this place. Miss Mary would 
 find them. She would make everything 
 right. The mere thought of Mistress Mary 
 brought a strange peace into poor Lisa s 
 overwrought, distraught mind. 
 
 She opened the closet door. It was as 
 dainty and neat as Mistress Mary herself, 
 and the mere sight of it bred order in Lisa s 
 thoughts. On the top of a pile of envelopes 
 lay the sewing-picture that Atlantic had 
 spoiled that day. It had been a black 
 morning, and the bit of cardboard was torn 
 and soiled and bent. Lisa looked at it with 
 a maternal and a prophetic eye. She could 
 
MARM LISA S QUEST. 105 
 
 see the firm line of Rhoda s lip as she bore 
 down upon the destructive urchin. She 
 could almost hear the bright challenging 
 tone as Rhoda would say: "Now, Atlantic, 
 let us see what we can do! Cut off the 
 chewed edges with these scissors, paste these 
 thin pieces of paper over the torn places, 
 and rub the card with this crust of bread. 
 A new one? Certainly not, my young 
 friend!" 
 
 Lisa took the poor little object in her 
 hand, and seeing Mistress Mary s white 
 apron, pressed her cheek against it in a 
 transport of tenderness and hung it over 
 her arm. Just then she caught sight of the 
 clay bird s-nest that Pacific had modeled, 
 such a lovely bird s-nest that it had been 
 kept for the cabinet. She carried her trea 
 sures over to the old-fashioned lounge where 
 the babies took their occasional nap, put 
 them carefully in a small red chair close 
 beside it, and then, stretching her weary 
 length on the cushions, she kissed the 
 smooth folds of the apron and clasped it in 
 her arms. 
 
 Mistress Mary would come soon. She 
 would come in her cloud of white, and her 
 steel fillet would gleam and shine when the 
 
106 MARM LISA. 
 
 sunshine fell upon it, and make star-rays 
 and moonbeams and lightning-flashes; and 
 the tiny points would twinkle and wink and 
 laugh and blink whenever she turned her 
 head. She would smile, and everything 
 would suddenly be clear; she would speak, 
 and the weary buzzing of windmills in the 
 brain would be hushed. Under her touch 
 the darkness and heaviness would vanish, 
 and there would be no more night there, 
 no more night. 
 
 As these healing visions stole upon Marm 
 Lisa, the torture and the anguish, the long 
 hours of bewilderment, faded little by little, 
 little by little, till at length a blessed sleep 
 crept over her eyelids, blotting into a merci 
 ful nothingness the terror and the misery 
 of the day. 
 
X. 
 
 THE TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. 
 
 MEANWHILE, Atlantic and Pacific had 
 been enjoying themselves even unto the 
 verge of delirium. In the course of their 
 wanderings they had come upon a China 
 man bearing aloft a huge red silken banner 
 crowned by a badger s tail. Everything 
 young that had two legs was following him, 
 and they joined the noble army of followers. 
 As they went on, other Chinamen with 
 other banners came from the side-alleys, 
 and all at once the small procession thus 
 formed turned a corner and came upon the 
 parent body, a sight that fairly stunned 
 them by its Oriental magnificence. It was 
 the four thousandth anniversary of the birth 
 of Yeong Wo, had the children realized it 
 (and that may have been the reason that 
 they awoke in a fever of excitement), 
 Yeong Wo, statesman, philanthropist, philo 
 sopher, and poet; and the great day had 
 been chosen to dedicate the new temple and 
 
108 MARM LISA. 
 
 install in it a new joss, and to exhibit a 
 monster dragon just arrived from China. 
 The joss had been sitting in solemn state in 
 his sanctum sanctorum for a week, while 
 the priests appeased him hourly with plen 
 teous libations of rice brandy, sacrifices of 
 snow-white pigeons, and offerings of var 
 nished pork. Clouds of incense had regaled 
 his expansive mahogany nostrils, while his 
 ears of ivory inlaid with gold and bronze 
 had been stimulated with the ceaseless clash 
 ing of gongs and wailings of Chinese fiddles. 
 Such homage and such worship would have 
 touched a heart of stone, and that of the 
 joss was penetrable sandalwood; so as the 
 days of preparation wore away, the smile 
 on the teakwood lips of the idol certainly 
 became more propitious. This was greatly 
 to the satisfaction of the augurs and the 
 high priest; for a mighty joss is not always 
 in a sunny humor on feast-days, and to 
 parade a sulky god through the streets is a 
 very depressing ceremony, foretelling to the 
 initiated a season of dire misfortune. So 
 his godship smiled and shook his plume of 
 peacock feathers benignantly on Yeong 
 Wo s birthday, and therefore the pageant 
 in which Atlantic and Pacific bore a part 
 
TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. 109 
 
 was more gorgeous than anything that ever 
 took place out of the Flowery Kingdom 
 itself. 
 
 Fortune smiled upon the naughty crea 
 tures at the very outset, for Pacific picked 
 up a stick of candy in the street, and gave 
 half of it to a pretty Chinese maiden whose 
 name in English would have been Spring 
 Blossom, and who looked, in any language, 
 like a tropical flower, in her gown of blue- 
 and-gold-embroidered satin and the sheaf of 
 tiny fans in her glossy black hair. Spring 
 Blossom accepted the gift with enthusiasm, 
 since a sweet tooth is not a matter of nation 
 ality, and ran immediately to tell her mo 
 ther, a childish instinct also of universal 
 distribution. She climbed, as nimbly as 
 her queer little shoes would permit, a flight 
 of narrow steps leading to a balcony ; while 
 the twins followed close at her heels, and 
 wedged their way through a forest of Mon 
 golian legs till they reached the front, where 
 they peeped through the spaces of the rail 
 ings with Spring Blossom, Fairy Foot, 
 Dewy Eose, and other Celestial babies, 
 quite overlooked in the crowd and excite 
 ment and jollity. Such a very riot of con 
 fusion there was, it seemed as if Confucius 
 
110 MARM LISA. 
 
 might have originally spelled his name with 
 an s in the middle; for every window was 
 black with pigtailed highbinders, cobblers, 
 pork butchers, and pawnbrokers. The nar 
 row streets and alleys became one seething 
 mass of Asiatic humanity, while the painted 
 belles came out on their balconies like but 
 terflies, sitting among a wealth of gaudy 
 paper flowers that looked pale in compari 
 son with the daubs of vermilion on their 
 cheeks and the rainbow colors of their silken 
 tunics. 
 
 At last the pageant had gathered itself 
 together, and came into full view in all its 
 magnificence. There were pagodas in teak- 
 wood inlaid with gold and resting on ebony 
 poles, and behind them, on a very tame 
 Rosinante decked with leopard skins and 
 gold bullion fringes, a Chinese maiden 
 dressed to represent a queen of Celestial 
 mythology. Then came more pagodas, and 
 companies of standard-bearers in lavender 
 tunics, red sashes, green and orange leg 
 gings and slippers; more and more splendid 
 banners, painted with dragons sprawling in 
 distressed attitudes ; litters containing minor 
 gods and the paraphernalia they were accus 
 tomed to need on a journey like this; more 
 
TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. Ill 
 
 litters bearing Chinese orchestras, gongs 
 going at full blast, fiddles squeaking, drums 
 rumbling, trumpets shrieking, cymbals 
 clashing, just the sort of Babel that the 
 twins adored. 
 
 And now came the chariot and throne of 
 the great joss himself, and just behind him 
 a riderless bay horse, intended for his im 
 perial convenience should he tire of being- 
 swayed about on the shoulders of his twelve 
 bearers, and elect to change his method of 
 conveyance. Behind this honored steed 
 came a mammoth rock-cod in a pagoda of 
 his own, and then, heralded by a fusillade 
 of fire -crackers, the new dragon itself, 
 stretching and wriggling its monster length 
 through one entire block. A swarm of 
 men cleared the way for it, gesticulating 
 like madmen in their zeal to get swimming- 
 room for the sacred monster. Never before 
 in her brief existence had Pacific Simonson 
 been afraid of anything, but if she had been 
 in the street, and had so much as caught 
 the wink of the dragon s eye or a wave of 
 its consecrated fin, she would have dropped 
 senseless to the earth ; as it was, she turned 
 her back to the procession, and, embracing 
 with terror-stricken fervor the legs of the 
 
112 HARM LISA. 
 
 Chinaman standing behind her, made up 
 her mind to be a better girl in the future. 
 The monster was borne by seventy-four 
 coolies who furnished legs for each of the 
 seventy-four joints of its body, while an 
 other concealed in its head tossed it wildly 
 about. Little pigtailed boys shrieked as 
 they looked at its gaping mouth that would 
 have shamed a man-eating shark, at the 
 huge locomotive headlights that served for 
 its various sets of eyes, at the horns made 
 of barber poles, and the moustache of 
 twisted hogshead hoops. Behind this bale 
 ful creature, came other smaller ones and 
 more flags, and litters with sacrificial offer 
 ings, and more musicians, till all disap 
 peared in the distance, and the crowd surged 
 in the direction of the temple. 
 
 There was no such good fortune for the 
 twins as an entrance into this holy of holies, 
 for it held comparatively few beside the 
 dignitaries, aristocrats, and wealthy mer 
 chants of the colony; but there was still 
 ample material for entertainment, and they 
 paid no heed to the going down of the sun. 
 Why should they, indeed, when there were 
 fascinating opium dens standing hospitably 
 open, where they could have the excitement 
 
TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. 113 
 
 of entrance even if it were followed by im 
 mediate ejectment? As it grew darker, the 
 scene grew more weird and fairy -like, for 
 the scarlet, orange, and blue lanterns began 
 to gleam one by one in the narrow door 
 ways, and from the shadowy corners of the 
 rooms behind them. In every shop were 
 tables laden with Chinese delicacies, fish, 
 flesh, fowl, tea, rice, whiskey, lichee nuts, 
 preserved limes, ginger, and other sweet 
 meats; all of which, when not proffered, 
 could be easily purloined, for there was no 
 spirit of parsimony or hostility afloat in the 
 air. In cubby -holes back of the counters, 
 behind the stoves, wherever they could find 
 room for a table, groups of moon-eyed men 
 began to congregate for their nightly game 
 of fan-tan, some of the players and onlook 
 ers smoking, while others chewed lengths 
 of peeled sugar-cane. 
 
 In the midst of festivities like these the 
 twins would have gone on from bliss to bliss 
 without consciousness of time or place, had 
 not hunger suddenly descended upon them 
 and sleep begun to tug at their eyelids, 
 changing in a trice their joy into sorrow, 
 and their mirth into mourning. Not that 
 they were troubled with any doubts, fears, 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 or perplexities. True, they had wandered 
 away from Eden Place, and had not the 
 slightest idea of their whereabouts. If they 
 had been a couple of babes in a wood, or 
 any two respectable lost children of romance, 
 memories of lullabies and prayers at mo 
 ther s knee would have precipitated them 
 at this juncture into floods of tears; but 
 home to them was simply supper and bed. 
 The situation did not seem complex to their 
 minds ; the only plan was of course to howl, 
 and to do it thoroughly, stand in a corner 
 of the market-place, and howl in such a 
 manner that there could be no mistake as 
 to the significance of the proceeding ; when 
 the crowd collected, for naturally a crowd 
 would collect, simply demand supper and 
 bed, no matter what supper nor which bed; 
 eat the first, lie down in the second, and 
 there you are ! If the twins had been older 
 and more experienced, they would have 
 known that people occasionally do demand 
 the necessities of life without receiving 
 them ; but in that case they would also have 
 known that such a misfortune would never 
 fall upon a couple of lost children who con 
 fide their woes to the public. There was 
 no preconcerted plan between them, no sys- 
 
TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. 115 
 
 tern. They acted without invention, pre 
 monition, or reflection. It was their habit 
 to scream, while holding the breath as long 
 as possible, whenever the universe was 
 unfriendly, and particularly when Nature 
 asserted herself in any way ; it was a curi 
 ous fact that they resented the intervention 
 of Nature and Providence with just as much 
 energy as they did the discipline of their 
 care-takers. They screamed now, the mo 
 ment that the entertainment palled and they 
 could not keep their eyes open without 
 effort, and never had they been more suc 
 cessful in holding their breath and growing- 
 black in the face; indeed, Pacific, in the 
 midst of her performance, said to Atlantic, 
 "Yours is purple, how is mine? " 
 
 A crowd did gather, inevitably, for the 
 twins lungs were capable of a body of tone 
 mo.re piercing than that of a Chinese orches 
 tra, and the wonder is that poor Lisa did 
 not hear them as she sat shivering on the 
 curbstone, miles away; for it was her name 
 with which they conjured. 
 
 The populace amused itself for a short 
 space of time, watching the fine but mis 
 directed zeal of the performance, and sup 
 posing that the parents of the chanthig 
 cherubs were within easy reach. It be- 
 
116 HARM LISA. 
 
 came unpleasant after a while, however, and 
 a policeman, inquiring into the matter, 
 marched the two dirty, weary little protest- 
 ants off to a station near by, a march 
 nearly as difficult and bloody as Sherman s 
 memorable "march to the sea;" for the 
 children associated nothing so pleasant as 
 supper and bed with a blue-coated, brass- 
 buttoned person, and resisted his well-meant 
 advances with might and main, and tooth 
 and nail. 
 
 The policeman was at last obliged to con 
 fine himself to Atlantic, and called a bro- 
 ther-in-arms to take charge of Pacific. He 
 was a man who had achieved distinction in 
 putting down railroad riots, so he was well 
 calculated for the task, although he was 
 somewhat embarrassed by the laughter of 
 the bystanders when his comrade called out 
 to him, "Take your club, Mike, but don t 
 use firearms unless your life s in danger! " 
 
 The station reached, the usual examina 
 tion took place. Atlantic never could tell 
 the name of the street in which he lived, 
 nor the number of the house. Pacific could, 
 perhaps, but would not; and it must be 
 said, in apology for her abnormal defiance, 
 that her mental operations were somewhat 
 confused, owing to copious indulgence in 
 
TWINS JOIN THE CELESTIALS. 117 
 
 strong tea, ginger, sugar-cane, and dried 
 fish. She had not been wisely approached 
 in the first place, and she was in her sulki 
 est and most combative humor; in fact, 
 when too urgently pressed for information 
 as to her age, ancestry, and abiding-place, 
 she told the worthy police officer to go to 
 a locality for which he felt utterly unsuited, 
 after a life spent in the exaltation of virtue 
 and the suppression of vice. (The vocabu 
 lary of the twins was somewhat poverty- 
 stricken in respect to the polite phrases of 
 society, but in profanity it would have been 
 rich for a parrot or a pirate.) The waifs 
 were presently given into the care of the 
 police matron, and her advice, sought later, 
 was to the effect that the children had bet 
 ter be fed and put to bed, and as little 
 trouble expended upon them as was consist 
 ent with a Christian city government. 
 
 "It is possible their parents may call for 
 them in the morning," she said acidly, "but 
 I think it is more than likely that they have 
 been deserted. I know if they belonged to 
 me they d be lost forever before I tried to 
 find them!" and she rubbed a black-and- 
 blue spot on her person, which, if exposed, 
 would have betrayed the shape, size, and 
 general ground-plan of Pacific s boot. 
 
XI. 
 
 RHODA FREES HER MIND. 
 
 MORNING dawned, and Mistress Mary 
 and Rhoda went up the flight of broad steps 
 rather earlier- than usual, so early that 
 the janitress, who had been awake half the 
 night with an ailing baby, was just going in 
 to dust the rooms. 
 
 It was she who first caught sight of the 
 old sofa and its occupant, and her exclama 
 tion drew Mary and Ehoda to the spot. 
 There lay poor Marm Lisa in the dead sleep 
 of exhaustion, her dress torn and wrinkled, 
 her shoes travel-stained, her hair tangled 
 and matted. Their first idea was that the 
 dreaded foe might have descended upon 
 her, and that she had had some terrible seiz 
 ure with no one near to aid and relieve her. 
 But the longer they looked, the less they 
 feared this ; her face, though white and tear- 
 stained, was tranquil, her lips only slightly 
 pale, and her breathing calm and steady. 
 Mary finally noted the pathetic grouping of 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 119 
 
 little objects in the red chair, and, touched 
 by this, began to apprehend the significance 
 of her own white apron close clasped in the 
 child s loyal arms, and fell a-weeping softly 
 on Khoda s shoulder. "She needed me, 
 Rhoda," she said. "I do not know for 
 what, but I am sure she needed me." 
 
 "I see it all," said Rhoda, administering 
 soft strokes of consolation : " it is something 
 to do with those little beasts; yes, I will 
 call them beasts, and if you don t let me, 
 I 11 call them brutes. They lost themselves 
 yesterday, of course, and dear old Lisa 
 searched for them all the afternoon and half 
 the night, for aught we know, and then 
 came here to be comforted, I suppose, 
 the blessed thing! " 
 
 "Hush! don t touch her," Mary whis 
 pered, as Rhoda went impetuously down on 
 her knees by the sofa ; " and we must not 
 talk in this room, for fear of waking her. 
 Suppose you go at once to Mrs. Grubb s, 
 dear, and whatever you learn about the 
 twins there, I shall meanwhile call a car 
 riage and take Lisa home to my own bed. 
 The janitress can send Edith to me as soon 
 as she comes, and I will leave her with 
 Lisa while I run back here to consult with 
 
120 MARM LISA. 
 
 you and Helen. I shall telegraph for Dr. 
 Thome, also, to be sure that this sleep is as 
 natural and healing a thing as it appears to 
 be." 
 
 Mrs. Grubb was surprised, even amused, 
 at Ehoda s exciting piece of news, but she 
 was perfectly tranquil. 
 
 "Well, don t they beat all!" she ex 
 claimed, leaning against the door-frame 
 and taking her side hair out of waving-pins 
 as she talked. "No, I haven t seen them 
 since noon yesterday. I was out to a picnic 
 supper at the Army Headquarters at night, 
 and didn t get home till later than usual, 
 so I did n t go up to their room. I thought 
 they were in bed ; they always have been in 
 bed when it was bedtime, ever since they 
 were born." Here she removed the last 
 pin, and put it with the others in the bosom 
 of her dress for safe-keeping. "This morn 
 ing, when they didn t turn up, I thought 
 some of you girls had taken a fancy to keep 
 them over night; I didn t worry, supposing 
 that Lisa was with them." 
 
 "Nobody on earth could take a fancy to 
 the twins or keep them an hour longer than 
 necessary, and you know it, Mrs. Grubb," 
 said Rhoda, who seldom minced matters; 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 121 
 
 "and in case no one should ever have the 
 bad manners to tell you the whole truth, I 
 want to say here and now that you neglect 
 everything good and sensible and practical, 
 all the plain simple duties that stare you 
 directly in the face, and waste yourself 
 on matters that are of no earthly use to any 
 body. Those children would have been 
 missed last night if you had one drop of 
 mother s blood in your veins! You have 
 three helpless children under what you are 
 pleased to call your care " (and here Rhoda s 
 lip curled so scornfully that Mrs. Grubb 
 was tempted to stab her with a curling-pin), 
 "and you went to sleep without knowing to 
 a certainty whether they had had supper or 
 bed! I don t believe you are a woman at 
 all, you are just a vague abstraction ; and 
 the only things you ve ever borne or nursed 
 or brooded in your life have been your mis 
 erable bloodless little clubs and bands and 
 unions! " 
 
 Rhoda s eyes flashed summer lightning, 
 her nostrils quivered, her cheeks flamed 
 scarlet, and Mrs. Grubb sat down suddenly 
 and heavily on the front stairs and gasped 
 for breath. According to her own belief, 
 her whole life had been passed in a search 
 
122 HARM LISA. 
 
 for truth, but it is safe to say she had never 
 before met it in so uncompromising and dis 
 agreeable a shape. 
 
 "Perhaps when you are quite through 
 with your billingsgate," she finally said, 
 "you will take yourself off my steps before 
 you are ejected. You ! to presume to criti 
 cise me ! You, that are so low in the scale 
 of being, you can no more understand my 
 feelings and motives than a jellyfish can 
 comprehend a star ! Go back and tell Miss 
 Mary," she went on majestically, as she 
 gained confidence and breath, "that it is 
 her duty and business to find the children, 
 since they were last seen with her, and un 
 less she proves more trustworthy they will 
 not be allowed to return to her. Tell her, 
 too, that when she wishes to communicate 
 with me, she must choose some other mes 
 senger besides you, you impudent, grovel 
 ing little earthworm ! Get out of my sight, 
 or you will unfit me for my classes! " 
 
 Mrs. Grubb was fairly superb as she 
 launched these thunderbolts of invective; 
 the staircase her rostrum, her left hand 
 poised impressively on the baluster, and the 
 three snaky strands of brown hair that had 
 writhed out of the wa.ving-pins hissing Me 
 dusa-wise on each side of her head. 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 123 
 
 Rhoda was considerably taken aback by 
 the sudden and violent slamming of the 
 door of number one, Eden Place, and she 
 felt an unwelcome misgiving as to her wis 
 dom in bringing Mrs. Grubb face to face 
 with truth. Her rage had somewhat sub 
 sided by the time she reached Mistress 
 Mary s side, for she had stopped on the 
 way to ask a policeman to telephone the 
 various stations for news of the lost chil 
 dren, and report at once to her. "There 
 is one good thing," she thought: "wherever 
 they may be, their light cannot be hid any 
 more than that of a city that is set on a hill. 
 There will be plenty of traces of their jour 
 ney, for once seen they are never forgotten. 
 Nobody but a hero would think of kidnap 
 ping them, and nobody but an idiot would 
 expect a ransom for them ! " 
 
 "I hope you did n t upbraid Mrs. Grubb," 
 said Mary, divining from Rhoda s clouded 
 brow that her interview had not been a 
 pleasant one. "You know our only peace 
 ful way of rescuing Lisa from her hold is 
 to make a friend of her, and convert her to 
 our way of thinking. Was she much dis 
 turbed about the children? " 
 
 "Disturbed! " sniffed Rhoda, disdain- 
 
124 MARM LISA. 
 
 fully. "Imagine Mrs. Grubb disturbed 
 about anything so trivial as a lost child ! If 
 it had been a lost amendment, she might 
 
 7 O 
 
 have been ruffled! " 
 
 "What is she doing about it, and in 
 what direction is she searching?" 
 
 "She is doing nothing, and she will do 
 nothing ; she has gone to a Theosophy lec 
 ture, and we are to find the twins ; and she 
 says it s your fault, anyway, and unless you 
 prove more trustworthy the seraphs will be 
 removed from your care; and you are not 
 to send me again as a messenger, if you 
 please, because I am an impudent, grovel 
 ing little earth-worm! " 
 
 "Rhoda!" 
 
 "Yes m!" 
 
 "Did she call you that?" 
 
 "Yes m, and a jellyfish besides; in fact, 
 she dragged me through the entire animal 
 kingdom ; but she is a stellar being, she 
 said so." 
 
 "What did you say to her to provoke 
 that, Ehoda? She is thoroughly illogical 
 and perverse, but she is very amiable." 
 
 "Yes, when you don t interfere with her. 
 You should catch her with her hair in wav- 
 ing-pins, just after she has imbibed apple 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 125 
 
 sauce! Oh, I can t remember exactly what 
 I said, for I confess I was a trifle heated, 
 and at the moment I thought only of freeing 
 my mind. Let me see : I told her she neg 
 lected all the practical duties that stared 
 her directly in the face, and squandered 
 herself on useless fads and vagaries, 
 that s about all. No-o, now that I come 
 to think of it, I did say that the children 
 would have been missed and found last 
 night, if she had had a drop of mother s 
 blood in her veins. 
 
 "That s terse and strong and tactful," 
 said Mary ; " anything more ? " 
 
 "No, I don t think so. Oh yes! now 
 that I reflect, I said I didn t believe she 
 was a woman at all. That seemed to enrage 
 her beyond anything, somehow; and when 
 I explained it, and tried to modify it by 
 saying I meant that she had never borne or 
 loved or brooded anything in her life but 
 her nasty little clubs, she was white with 
 anger, and told me I was too low in the 
 scale of being to understand her. Good 
 gracious! I wish she understood herself 
 half as well as I understand her! " 
 
 Mary gave a hysterical laugh. "I can t 
 pretend you did n t speak the truth, Khoda, 
 
126 MARM LISA. 
 
 but I am sadly afraid it was ill advised to 
 wound Mrs. Grubb s vanity. Do you feel 
 a good deal better?" 
 
 "No," confessed Rhoda penitently. "I 
 did for fifteen minutes, yes, nearly half 
 an hour; but now I feel worse than ever." 
 
 "That is one of the commonest symptoms 
 of freeing one s mind," observed Mary 
 quietly. 
 
 It was scarcely an hour later when Atlan 
 tic and Pacific were brought in by an officer, 
 very dirty and disheveled, but gay and irre 
 sponsible as larks, nonchalant, amiable, and 
 unrepentant. As Rhoda had prophesied, 
 there had been no difficulty in rinding them ; 
 and as everybody had prophesied, once 
 found there had not been a second s delay 
 in delivery. Moved by fiery hatred of the 
 police matron, who had illustrated justice 
 more than mercy, and illustrated it with the 
 back of a hair-brush on their reversed per 
 sons; lured also by two popcorn balls, a 
 jumping-jack, and a tin horse, they accepted 
 the municipal escort with alacrity; and no 
 thing was ever jauntier than the manner in 
 which Pacific, all smiles and molasses, held 
 up her sticky lips for an expected salute, - 
 an unusual offer which was respectfully de 
 clined as a matter of discipline. 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 127 
 
 Mary longed for Rhoda s young minister 
 in the next half -hour, which she devoted to 
 private spiritual instruction. Psychology 
 proved wholly unequal to the task of fathom 
 ing the twins, and she fancied that theology 
 might have been more helpful. Their idea 
 seemed to be if the rudimentary thing she 
 unearthed from their consciousness could be 
 called an idea that they would not mind 
 repenting if they could see anything of 
 which to repent. Of sin, as sin, they had 
 no apparent knowledge, either by sight, by 
 hearsay, or by actual acquaintance. They 
 sat stolidly in their little chairs, eyes roving 
 to the windows, the blackboard, the pic 
 tures; they clubbed together and fished a 
 pin from a crack in the floor during one of 
 Mary s most thrilling appeals; finally, they 
 appeared so bored by the whole proceeding 
 that she felt a certain sense of embarrass 
 ment in the midst of her despair. She took 
 them home herself at noon, apologized to 
 the injured Mrs. Grubb for Rhoda s unfor 
 tunate remarks, and told that lady, gently 
 but firmly, that Lisa could not be moved 
 until she was decidedly better. 
 
 "She was wandering about the streets 
 searching for the twins from noon till long 
 
128 HARM LISA. 
 
 after dark, Mrs. Grubb, there can be no 
 doubt of it; and she bears unmistakable 
 signs of having suffered deeply. I have 
 called in a physician, and we must all abide 
 by his advice." 
 
 "That s well enough for the present," 
 agreed Mrs. Grubb reluctantly, "but I can 
 not continue to have my studies broken in 
 upon by these excitements. I really cannot. 
 I thought I had made an arrangement with 
 Madame Goldmarker to relieve me, but 
 she has just served me a most unladylike 
 and- deceitful trick, and the outcome of it 
 will be that I shall have to send Lisa to the 
 asylum. I can get her examined by the 
 commissioners some time before Christmas, 
 and if they decide she s imbecile they 11 
 take her off my hands. I did n t want to 
 part with her till the twins got older, but 
 I ve just found a possible home for them if 
 I can endure their actions until New Year s. 
 Our Army of Present Perfection is n t pro 
 gressing as it ought to, and it s going to 
 found a colony down in San Diego County, 
 and advertise for children to bring up in 
 the faith. A certain number of men and 
 women have agreed to go and start the 
 thing, and I m sure my sister, if she was 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 129 
 
 alive, would be glad to donate her children 
 to such a splendid enterprise. If the com 
 missioners won t take Lisa, she can go to 
 Soul Haven, too, that s the name of the 
 pl ace . but no, of course they would n t want 
 any but bright children, that would grow 
 up and spread the light." (Mary smiled at 
 the thought of the twins engaged in the 
 occupation of spreading light.) "I shall 
 not join the community myself, though I 
 believe it s a good thing; but a very differ 
 ent future is unveiling itself before me" 
 (her tone was full of mystery here), "and 
 some time, if I can ever pursue my inves 
 tigations in peace, you will knock at this 
 door and I shall have vanished! But I 
 shall know of your visit, and the very sound 
 of your footfall will reach my ear, even if 
 I am inhabiting some remote mountain fast 
 ness!" 
 
 When Lisa awoke that night, she heard 
 the crackling of a wood fire on the hearth ; 
 she felt the touch of soft linen under her 
 aching body, and the pressure of something 
 cool and fragrant on her forehead. Her 
 right hand, feebly groping the white coun 
 terpane, felt a flower in its grasp. Opening 
 
130 HARM LISA. 
 
 her eyes, she saw the firelight dancing on 
 tinted walls, and an angel of deliverance 
 sitting by her bedside, a dear familiar 
 woman angel, whose fair crowned head rose 
 from a cloud of white, and whose sweet 
 downward gaze held all of benignant mother 
 hood that God could put into woman s eyes. 
 Marm Lisa looked up dumbly and won- 
 deringly at first, but the mind stirred, 
 thought flowed in upon it, a wave of pain 
 broke over her heart, and she remembered 
 all; for remembrance, alas, is the price of 
 reason. 
 
 "Lost! my twinnies, all lost and gone!" 
 she whispered brokenly, with long, shudder 
 ing sobs between the words. "I look 
 look look ; never, never find I " 
 
 "No, no, dear," Mary answered, stroking 
 the lines from her forehead, "not lost any 
 more ; found, Lisa, do you understand ? 
 They are found, they are safe and well, and 
 nobody blames you ; and you are safe, too, 
 your new self, your best self unharmed, 
 thank God; so go to sleep, little sister, and 
 dream happy dreams! " 
 
 Glad tears rushed from the poor child s 
 eyes, tears of conscious happiness, and the 
 burden rolled away from her heart now, as 
 
RHODA FREES HER MIND. 131 
 
 yesterday s whirring shuttles in her brain 
 had been hushed into silence by her long 
 sleep. She raised her swimming eyes to 
 Mistress Mary s with a look of unspeakable 
 trust. " I love you ! oh, I love, love, love 
 you! " she whispered, and, holding the flower 
 close to her breast, she breathed a sigh of 
 sweet content, and sank again into quiet 
 slumber. 
 
XII. 
 
 FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 
 
 IT may be said in justice to Mrs. Grubb 
 that she was more than usually harassed 
 just at this time. 
 
 Mrs. Sylvester, her voluble next-door 
 neighbor, who had lifted many sordid cares 
 from her shoulders, had suddenly become 
 tired of the "new method of mental heal 
 ing," and during a brief absence of Mrs. 
 Grubb from the city had issued a thousand 
 embossed gilt-edged cards, announcing her 
 self as a Hand Keader in the following 
 terms : 
 
 TO THE ELITE LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF THE 
 CITY ! 
 
 I take this method of introducing myself to your 
 kind consideration as a Hand Reader of rare and gen 
 uine merit catering merely to the Creme du le Creme 
 of this city. No others need apply. 
 
 Having been educated carefully and refinedly, 
 speaking French fluently, therefore I only wish to 
 deal with the elite of the bon-ton. 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 133 
 
 I do not advertise in papers nor at residence. 
 Ladies $1.50. Gents $2. 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 MRS. PANSY SYLVESTER, 
 3 Eden Place near 4th, 
 
 Lower bell. 
 P. S. Pupil of S. CORA GRUBB. 
 
 Inasmuch as Mrs. Sylvester had imbibed 
 all her knowledge from Mrs. Grubb, that 
 prophet and scholar thought, not unnatu 
 rally, that she might have been consulted 
 about the enterprise, particularly as the 
 cards were of a nature to prejudice the bet 
 ter class of patients, and lower the social 
 tone of the temple of healing. 
 
 As if this were not vexatious enough, her 
 plans were disarranged in another and more 
 important particular. Mrs. Sylvester s man 
 icure had set up a small establishment 
 for herself, and admitted as partner a cer 
 tain chiropodist named Boone. The two 
 artists felt that by sharing expenses they 
 might increase profits, and there was a 
 sleeping thought in both their minds that 
 the partnership might ripen into marriage 
 if the financial returns of the business were 
 satisfactory. It was destined, however, to 
 be a failure in both respects ; for Dr. Boone 
 
!3 4 HARM LISA. 
 
 looked upon Madame Goldmarker, the vocal 
 teacher in number thirteen, Eden Place, and 
 to look upon her was to love her madly, 
 since she earned seventy-five dollars a 
 month, while the little manicure could barely 
 eke out a slender and uncertain twenty. 
 In such crises the heart can be trusted to 
 leap in the right direction and beat at the 
 proper rate. 
 
 Mrs. Grubb would have had small inter 
 est in these sordid romances had it not been 
 that Madame Goldmarker had faithfully 
 promised to look after Lisa and the twins, 
 so that Mrs. Grubb might be free to hold 
 classes in the adjoining towns. The little 
 blind god had now overturned all these 
 well-laid plans, and Mrs. Grubb was for 
 the moment the victim of inexorable circum 
 stances. 
 
 Ur. Boone fitted up princely apartments 
 next his office, and Madame Goldmarker- 
 Boone celebrated her nuptials and her de 
 sertion of Eden Place by making a formal 
 debut at a concert in Pocahontas Hall. 
 The next morning, the neighborhood that 
 knew them best, and many other neighbor 
 hoods that knew them not at all, received 
 neat printed circulars thrust under the front 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 135 
 
 door. Upon one side of the paper were 
 printed the words and music of Home, 
 Sweet Home "as sung by Madame Gold- 
 marker-Boone at her late concert in Poca- 
 hontas Hall." On the reverse side appeared 
 a picture of the doctor, a neat cut of a 
 human foot, a schedule of prices, and the 
 alluring promise that the Madame s vocal 
 pupils would receive treatment at half the 
 regular rates. 
 
 Many small disputes and quarrels were 
 consequent upon these business, emotional, 
 and social convulsions, and each of the par 
 ties concerned, from Mrs. Grubb to the 
 chiropodist, consulted Mistress Mary and 
 solicited her advice and interference. 
 
 This seemed a little strange, but Mistress 
 Mary s garden was the sort of place to act 
 as a magnet to reformers, eccentrics, pro 
 fessional philanthropists, and cranks. She 
 never quite understood the reason, and for 
 that matter nobody else did, unless it were 
 simply that the place was a trifle out of the 
 common, and she herself a person full of 
 ideas, and eminently sympathetic with those 
 of other people. Anybody could "drop in," 
 and as a consequence everybody did, 
 grandmothers, mothers with babes in arms, 
 
136 MAR M LISA. 
 
 teachers, ministers, photographers, travel 
 ers, and journalists. A Russian gentleman 
 who had escaped from Siberia was a fre 
 quent visitor. He wanted to marry Edith 
 and open a boarding-house for Russian ex 
 iles, and was perfectly confident of making 
 her happy, as he spoke seven languages and 
 had been a good husband to two Russian 
 ladies now deceased. An Alaskan mission 
 ary, home on a short leave, called periodi 
 cally and attempted to persuade Mary to 
 return with him to his heathen. These suit 
 ors were disposed of summarily when they 
 made their desires known, but there were 
 other visitors, part of the flotsam and jet 
 sam of a great city, who appeared and dis 
 appeared mysteriously, ships passing Mis 
 tress Mary in the night of sorrow, and, after 
 some despairing, half -comprehended signal, 
 vanishing into the shadows out of which 
 they had come. Sometimes, indeed, inspired 
 by the good cheer of the place, they departed 
 looking a little less gloomy ; sometimes, too, 
 they grew into a kind of active if transitory 
 relation with the busy little world, and be 
 came, for the time, a part of it. 
 
 Mistress Mary went down to the street 
 corner with the children one noon to see 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 137 
 
 them safely over the crossing. There was 
 generally a genial policeman who made it a 
 part of his duty to stand guard there, and 
 guide the reckless and stupid and bewildered 
 ones among the youngsters over the difficul 
 ties that lay in their path. Sometimes he 
 would devote himself exclusively to Atlan 
 tic and Pacific Simonson, who really desired 
 death, though they were not spiritually fitted 
 for it, and bent all their energies toward 
 getting under trucks rather than away from 
 them. Marm Lisa never approached the 
 spot without a nervous trembling and a look 
 of terror in her eyes, and before the advent 
 of the helpful officer had always taken a twin 
 by each arm, and the three had gone over 
 thus as a solid body, no matter how strong 
 the resistance. 
 
 On this special morning there was no 
 guardian of the peace in evidence, but stand 
 ing on the crossing was a bearded man of 
 perhaps forty years. Kather handsome he 
 was, and well though carelessly dressed, but 
 he stood irresolutely, with his hands in his 
 pockets, as if quite undecided what to do 
 next. Mary simply noted him as an alto 
 gether strange figure in the neighborhood, 
 but the unexpected appearance of a large 
 
138 MARM LISA. 
 
 dog on the scene scattered the babies, and 
 they fell on her in a weeping phalanx. 
 
 "Will you kindly help a little?" she 
 asked after a moment s waiting, in which 
 any chivalrous gentleman, she thought, 
 should have flung himself into the breach. 
 
 "I?" he asked vaguely. "How do you 
 mean? What shall I do ?" 
 
 She longed to say, "Wake up, and per 
 haps an idea will come to you;" but she 
 did say, with some spirit, "Almost any 
 thing, thank you. Drive the dog away, 
 and help some of the smallest children across 
 the street, please. You can have these two " 
 (indicating the twins smilingly), "or the 
 other ninety-eight, whichever you like." 
 
 He obeyed orders, though not in a very 
 alert fashion, but showed a sense of humor 
 in choosing the ninety-eight rather than the 
 two, and Mary left him on the corner with 
 a pleasant word of thanks and a cheery 
 remark. 
 
 The next morning he appeared at the 
 garden gate, and asked if he might come in 
 and sit awhile. He was made welcome; 
 but it was a busy morning, and he was so 
 silent a visitor that everybody forgot his 
 existence. 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 139 
 
 He made a curious impression, which can 
 hardly be described, save that any student 
 of human nature would say at once, "He 
 is out of relation with the world." He had 
 something of the expression one sees in a 
 recluse or a hermit. If you have ever wan 
 dered up a mountain side, you may have 
 come suddenly upon a hut, a rude bed 
 within it, and in the door a man reading, 
 or smoking, or gazing into vacancy. You 
 remember the look you met in that man s 
 eyes. He has tasted life and found it bit 
 ter; has sounded the world and found it 
 hollow; has known man or woman and 
 found them false. Friendship to him is 
 without savor, and love without hope. 
 
 After watching the children for an hour, 
 the stranger slipped out quietly. Mistress 
 Mary followed him to the door, abashed at 
 her unintentional discourtesy in allowing 
 him to go without a good-morning. She 
 saw him stand at the foot of the steps, look 
 first up, then down the street, then walk 
 aimlessly to the corner. There, with hands 
 in pockets, he paused again, glancing four 
 ways ; then, with a shrug and a gait that 
 seemed to say, "It makes no difference," 
 he slouched away. 
 
140 MARM LISA. 
 
 "He is simply a stranger in a strange 
 city, pining for his home," thought Mary, 
 "or else he is a stranger in every city, and 
 has nowhere a home." 
 
 He came again a few days later, and 
 then again, apologizing for the frequency of 
 his visits, but giving no special reason for 
 them. The neophytes called him "the Soli 
 tary," but the children christened him after 
 a fashion of their own, and began to ask 
 small favors of him. "Thread my needle, 
 please, Mr. Man!" "More beads," or 
 "More paper, Mr. Man, please." 
 
 It is impossible to keep out of relation 
 with little children. One of these mites of 
 humanity would make a man out of your 
 mountain hermit, resist as he might. They 
 set up a claim on one whether it exists or 
 not, and one has to allow it, and respond 
 to it at least in some perfunctory fashion. 
 More than once, as Mr. Man sat silently 
 near the circle, the chubby Baker baby 
 would fall over his feet, and he would invol 
 untarily stoop to pick her up, straighten 
 her dress, and soothe her woe. There was 
 no hearty pleasure in his service even now. 
 Nobody was certain that he felt any plea 
 sure at all. His helpfulness was not spon- 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 141 
 
 taneous ; it seemed a kind of reflex action, 
 a survival of some former state of mind or 
 heart; for he did his favors in a dream, nor 
 heard any thanks, yet the elixir was work 
 ing in his veins. 
 
 "He is dreadfully in the way," grumbled 
 Edith; "he is more ever-present than my 
 ardent Russian." 
 
 " So long as he insists on coming, let us 
 make him supply the paternal element," 
 suggested Rhoda. "It may be a degrading 
 confession, but we could afford to part with 
 several women here if we could only secure 
 a really fatherly man. The Solitary cannot 
 indulge in any day-dreams or trances, if we 
 accept him as the patriarch of the institu 
 tion." 
 
 Whereupon they boldly asked him, on 
 his subsequent visits, to go upon errands, 
 and open barrels of apples, and order intoxi 
 cated gentlemen off the steps, and mend 
 locks and window-fastenings, and sharpen 
 lead-pencils, and put on coal, and tell the 
 lady in the rear that her parrot interfered 
 with their morning prayers by shrieking the 
 hymns in impossible keys. He accepted 
 these tasks without protest, and performed 
 them conscientiously, save in the parrot dif- 
 
142 MARM LISA. 
 
 ficulty, in which case he gave one look at the 
 lady, and fled without opening the subject. 
 
 It could not be said that he appeared more 
 cheerful, the sole sign of any increased ex 
 hilaration of spirits being the occasional 
 straightening of his cravat and the smooth 
 ing of his hair, refinements of toilet that 
 had heretofore been much neglected, though 
 he always looked unmistakably the gentle 
 man. 
 
 He seemed more attracted by Lisa than 
 by any of the smaller children; but that 
 may have been because Mary had told him 
 her story, thinking that other people s sto 
 ries were a useful sort of thing to tell people 
 who had possible stories of their own. 
 
 Lisa was now developing a curious and 
 unexpected facility and talent in the musi 
 cal games. She played the tambourine, the 
 triangle, the drum, as nobody else could, 
 and in accompanying the marches she in 
 vented all sorts of unusual beats and accents. 
 It grew to be the natural thing to give her 
 difficult parts in the little dramas of child 
 life: the cock that crowed in the morn to 
 wake the sleeping birds and babies, the 
 mother bird in the nest, the spreading wil 
 low-tree in the pond where the frogs con- 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 143 
 
 gregated, these roles she delighted in and 
 played with all her soul. 
 
 It would have been laughable, had it not 
 been pathetic, to watch her drag Mr. Man 
 into the games, and to see him succumb to 
 her persuasions with his face hanging out 
 flaming signals of embarrassment. In the 
 "Carrier Doves" the little pigeons flew 
 with an imaginary letter to him, and this 
 meant that he was to stand and read it 
 aloud, as Mary and Edith had done before 
 him. 
 
 "It seems to be a letter from a child," he 
 faltered, and then began stammeringly, 
 " My dear Mr. Man " There was a 
 sudden stop. That there was a letter in 
 his mind nobody could doubt, but he was 
 too greatly moved to read it. Ehoda quickly 
 reached out her hand for the paper, cover 
 ing his discomfiture by exclaiming, "The 
 pigeons have brought Mr. Man a letter from 
 some children in his fatherland! Yes" 
 (reading), "they hope that we will be good 
 to him, because he is far away from home, 
 and they send their love to all Mistress 
 Mary s children. Was n t it pretty of the 
 doves to remember that Mr. Man is a 
 stranger here?" 
 
144 HARM LISA. 
 
 The Solitary appeared for the last time 
 a week before Thanksgiving Day, and he 
 opened the door on a scene of jollity that 
 warmed him to the heart. 
 
 In the middle of the floor was a mimic 
 boat, crowded from stem to stern with little 
 Pilgrim fathers and mothers trying to land 
 on Plymouth Rock, in a high state of excite 
 ment and an equally high sea. Pat Higgins 
 was a chieftain commanding a large force 
 of tolerably peaceful Indians on the shore, 
 and Massasoit himself never exhibited more 
 dignity; while Marm Lisa was the proud 
 mother of the baby Oceanus born on the 
 eventful voyage of the Mayflower. 
 
 Then Mistress Mary told the story of the 
 festival Very simply and sweetly, and all the 
 tiny Pilgrims sang a hymn of thanksgiving. 
 The Solitary listened, with his heart in his 
 eyes and a sob in his throat; then, Heaven 
 knows under the inspiration of what mem 
 ory, he brushed Edith from the piano-stool, 
 and seating himself in her place, played as 
 if he were impelled by some irresistible 
 force. The hand of a master had never 
 swept those keys before, and he held his 
 hearers spellbound. 
 
 There was a silence that could be felt. 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 145 
 
 The major part of the audience were not of 
 an age to appreciate high art, but the young 
 sters were awed by the strange spectacle of 
 Mr. Man at the piano, and with gaping 
 mouth and strained ear listened to the divine 
 harmonies he evoked. On and on he played, 
 weaving the story of his past into the music, 
 so it seemed to Mistress Mary. The theme 
 came brokenly and uncertainly at first, as 
 his thoughts strove for expression. Then 
 out of the bitterness and gall, the suffering 
 and the struggle, and was it remorse ? 
 was born a sweet, resolute, triumphant 
 strain that carried the listeners from height 
 to height of sympathy and emotion. It had 
 not a hint of serenity; it was new-born 
 courage, aspiration, and self-mastery, the 
 song of "him that overcometh." 
 
 When he paused, there was a deep-drawn 
 breath, a sigh from hearts surcharged with 
 feeling, and Lisa, who had drawn closer 
 and closer to the piano, stood there now, 
 one hand leaning on Mr. Man s shoulder 
 and the tears chasing one another down her 
 cheeks. 
 
 "It hurts me here," she sighed, pressing 
 her hand to her heart. 
 
 He rose presently and left the room with- 
 
146 HARM LISA. 
 
 out a word, while the children prepared for 
 home -going with a subdued air of having 
 assisted at some solemn rite. 
 
 When Mistress Mary went out on the 
 steps, a little later, he was still there. 
 
 " It is the last time ! Auf wiedersehen ! " 
 he said. 
 
 "Auf wiedersehen," she answered gently, 
 giving him her hand. 
 
 "Have you no Thanksgiving sermon for 
 me?" he asked, holding her fingers linger- 
 ingly. "No child in all your flock needs it 
 so much." 
 
 "Yes," said Mary, her eyes falling, for 
 a moment, beneath his earnest gaze; but 
 suddenly she lifted them again as she said 
 bravely, "I have a sermon, but it is one 
 with a trumpet-call, and little balm in it. 
 4 Unto whomsoever anything is given, of him 
 something shall be required. 
 
 When he reached the corner of the street 
 he stopped, but instead of glancing four 
 ways, as usual, he looked back at the porch 
 where Mistress Mary stood. She carried 
 Jenny Baker, a rosy sprig of babyhood, in 
 the lovely curve of her arm, Bobby Baxter 
 clasped her neck from behind in a strang 
 ling embrace, Johnny and Meg and Billy 
 
FLOTSAM AND JETSAM. 147 
 
 were tugging at her apron, and Marm Lisa 
 was standing on tiptoe trying to put a rose 
 in her hair. Then the Solitary passed into 
 the crowd, and they saw him in the old 
 places no more. 
 
XIII. 
 
 LEAVES FROM MISTRESS MARY S GARDEN. 
 
 have an unknown benefactor. A 
 fortnight ago came three bushels of flowers : 
 two hundred tiny nosegays marked c For the 
 children, half a dozen knots of pink roses 
 for the little mothers, a dozen scarlet car 
 nations for Lisa, while one great bunch of 
 white lilies bore the inscription For the 
 Mother Superior. Last week a barrel of 
 apples and another of oranges appeared 
 mysteriously, and to-day comes a note, 
 written in a hand we do not recognize, say 
 ing we are not to buy holly, mistletoe, ever 
 greens, Christmas tree, or baubles of any 
 kind, as they will be sent to us on Decem 
 ber 22. We have inquired of our friends, 
 but have no clew as yet, further than it must 
 be somebody who knows our needs and de 
 sires very thoroughly. We have certainly 
 entertained an angel unawares, but which 
 among the crowd of visitors is it most likely 
 to be ? The Solitary, I wonder ? I should 
 
LEAVES FROM MARTS GARDEN. 149 
 
 never have thought it, were it not for the 
 memory of that last day, the scene at the 
 piano, the song of him that overcometh, 
 and the backward glance from the corner 
 as he sprang, absolutely sprang, on the car. 
 There was purpose in it, or I am greatly 
 mistaken. Mr. Man s eyes would be worth 
 looking into, if one could find purpose in 
 their brown depths! Moreover, though I 
 am too notorious a dreamer of dreams to be 
 trusted, I cannot help fancying he went back 
 to something; it was not a mere forward 
 move, not a sudden determination to find 
 some new duty to do that life might grow 
 nobler and sweeter, but a return to an old 
 duty grown hateful. That was what I saw 
 in his face as he stood on the crossing, with 
 the noon sunshine caught in his tawny hair 
 and beard. Rhoda, Edith, and I have each 
 made a story about him, and each of us 
 would vouch for the truth of her particular 
 version. I will not tell mine, but this is 
 Rhoda s; and while it differs from my own 
 in several important particulars, it yet bears 
 an astonishing resemblance to it. It is 
 rather romantic; but if one is to make any 
 sort of story out of the Solitary it must be 
 a romantic one, for he suggests no other. 
 
150 MARM LISA. 
 
 "Rhoda began her tale with a thrilling 
 introduction that set us all laughing (we 
 smile here when still the tears are close at 
 hand; indeed, we must smile, or we could 
 not live): the prelude being something 
 about a lonely castle in the heart of the 
 Hartz Mountains, and a prattling golden- 
 haired babe stretching its arms across a 
 ruined moat in the direction of its absent 
 father. This was in the nature of an absurd 
 prologue, but when she finally came to the 
 Solitary she grew serious; for she made 
 him in the bygone days a sensitive child 
 and a dreamy, impetuous youth, with a 
 domineering, ill-tempered father who was 
 utterly unable and unwilling to understand 
 or to sympathize with him. His younger 
 brother (for Rhoda insists on a younger 
 brother) lived at home, while he, the elder, 
 spent, or misspent, his youth and early man 
 hood in a German university. As the years 
 went on, the relations between himself and 
 his father grew more and more strained. 
 Do as the son might, he could never please, 
 either in his line of thought and study or in 
 his practical pursuits. The father hated 
 his books, his music, his poetry, and his 
 artist friends, while he on his part found 
 
LEAVES FROM MARTS GARDEN. 151 
 
 nothing to stimulate or content him in his 
 father s tasks and manner of life. His 
 mother pined and died in the effort to keep 
 peace between them, but the younger bro 
 ther s schemes were quite in an opposite 
 direction. At this time Mr. Man flung 
 himself into a foolish marriage, one that 
 promised little in the shape of the happiness 
 he craved so eagerly. (Khoda insists on 
 this unhappy marriage; I am in doubt 
 about it.) Finally his father died, and on 
 being summoned home, as he supposed, to 
 take his rightful place and assume the man 
 agement of the estate, he found himself dis 
 inherited. He could have borne the loss of 
 fortune and broad acres better than this 
 convincing proof of his father s dislike and 
 distrust, and he could have endured even 
 that, had it not befallen him through the 
 perfidy of his brother. When, therefore, 
 he was met by his wife s bitter reproaches 
 and persistent coldness, he closed his heart 
 against all the world, shook the dust of 
 home from off his feet, left his own small 
 fortune behind him, kissed his little son, 
 and became a wanderer on the face of the 
 earth. 
 
 "This is substantially Rhoda s story, but 
 
152 HARM LISA. 
 
 it does not satisfy her completely. She 
 says, in her whimsical way, that it needs 
 another villain to account properly for Mr. 
 Man s expression. 
 
 "Would it not be strange if by any 
 chance we have brought him to a happier 
 frame of mind? Would it not be a lovely 
 tribute to the secret power of this place, to 
 the healing atmosphere of love that we try 
 to create, that atmosphere in which we 
 bathe our own tired spirits day by day, re 
 creating ourselves with every new dawn? 
 But whether our benefactor be the Solitary 
 or not, some heart has been brought into 
 new relation with us and with the world. 
 It only confirms my opinion that everybody 
 is at his or her best in the presence of chil 
 dren. In what does the magic of their in 
 fluence consist? This morning I was riding 
 down in the horse -cars, and a poor ragged 
 Italian woman entered, a baby in her arms, 
 and two other children following close be 
 hind. The girl was a mite of a thing, pre 
 maturely grave, serious, pretty, and she led 
 a boy just old enough to toddle. She lifted 
 him carefully up to the seat (she who should 
 have been lifted herself!), took his hat, 
 smoothed his damp curly hair, and tucked 
 
LEAVES FROM MARY S GARDEN. 153 
 
 his head down on her shoulder, a shoulder 
 that had begun its life-work full early, poor 
 tot! The boy was a feeble, frail, ill-nour 
 ished, dirty young urchin, who fell asleep as 
 soon as his head touched her arm. His 
 child nurse, having made him comfortable, 
 gave a sigh of relief, and looked up and 
 down the car with a radiant smile of con 
 tent. Presto, change! All the railroad 
 magnates and clerks had been watching her 
 over their newspapers, and in one instant 
 she had captured the car. I saw tears in 
 many eyes, and might have seen more had 
 not my own been full. There was appar 
 ently no reason for the gay, winsome, en 
 chanting smile that curved the red mouth, 
 brought two dimples into the brown cheeks, 
 and sunny gleams into two dark eyes. True, 
 she was riding instead of walking, and her 
 charge was sleeping instead of waking and 
 wailing; but these surely were trifling mat 
 ters on which to base such rare content. 
 Yet there it was shining in her face as she 
 met a dozen pairs of eyes, and saw in each 
 of them love for her sweet motherly little 
 self, and love for the eternal womanly of 
 which she was the visible expression. There 
 was a general exodus at Brett Street, and 
 
154 MARM LISA. 
 
 every man furtively slipped a piece of silver 
 into the child s lap as he left the car; each, 
 I think, trying to hide his action from the 
 others. 
 
 "It is of threads such as these that I 
 weave the fabric of my daily happiness, 
 a happiness that my friends never seem able 
 to comprehend; the blindest of them pity 
 me, indeed, but I consider myself, like 
 Mary of old, blessed among women. 
 
 Another day. "God means all sorts of 
 things when he sends men and women into 
 the world. That he means marriage, and 
 that it is the chiefest good, I have no doubt, 
 but it is the love forces in it that make it 
 so. I may, perhaps, reach my highest 
 point of development without marriage, but 
 I can never do it unless I truly and deeply 
 love somebody or something. I am not 
 sure, but it seems to me God intends me for 
 other people s children, not for my own. 
 My heart is so entirely in my work that I 
 fancy I have none left for a possible hus 
 band. If ever a man comes who is strong 
 enough and determined enough to sweep 
 things aside and make a place for himself, 
 willy-nilly, I shall ask him to come in and 
 
LEAVES FROM MARY S GARDEN. 155 
 
 rest ; but that seems very unlikely. What 
 man have I ever seen who would help me to 
 be the woman my work helps me to be ? Of 
 course there are such, but the Lord keeps 
 them safely away from my humble notice, 
 lest I should die of love or be guilty of 
 hero-worship. 
 
 "Men are so dull, for the most part! 
 They are often tender and often loyal, but 
 they seldom put any spiritual leaven into 
 their tenderness, and their loyalty is apt to 
 be rather unimaginative. Heigho! I wish - 
 we could make lovers as the book-writers 
 do, by rolling the virtues and graces of two 
 or three men into one ! I d almost like to 
 be a man in this decade, a young, strong 
 man, for there are such splendid giants to 
 slay! To be sure, a woman can always 
 buckle on the sword, and that is rather a 
 delightful avocation, after all; but somehow 
 there are comparatively few men nowadays 
 who care greatly to wear swords or have 
 them buckled on. There is no inspiration 
 in trying to buckle on the sword of a man 
 who never saw one, and who uses it wrong 
 end foremost, and falls down on it, and en 
 tangles his legs in it, and scratches his 
 lady s hand with it whenever he kisses her! 
 
156 HARM LISA. 
 
 And therefore, these things, for aught I see, 
 being unalterably so, I will take children s 
 love, woman s love, and man s friendship; 
 man s friendship, which, if it is not life s 
 poetry, is credible prose, says George Mere 
 dith, a land of low undulations, instead 
 of Alps, beyond the terrors and deceptions. 
 That will fill to overflowing my life, already 
 so full, and in time I shall grow from every 
 body s Mistress Mary into everybody s Mo 
 ther Mary, and that will be the end of me 
 in my present state of being. I am happy, 
 yes, I am blessedly happy in this prospect, 
 and yet " 
 
 Another day. "My beloved work! 
 How beautiful it is! Toniella has not 
 brought little Nino this week. She says he 
 is ill, but that he sits every day in the 
 orchard, singing our songs and modeling 
 birds from the lump of clay we sent him. 
 When I heard that phrase in the orchard, 
 I felt a curious sensation, for I know they 
 live in a tenement house ; but I said nothing, 
 and went to visit them. 
 
 "The orchard is a few plants in pots and 
 pans on a projecting window-sill! 
 
 "My heart went down on its knees when 
 
LEAVES FROM MARY S GARDEN. 157 
 
 I saw it. The divine spark is in those chil 
 dren; it will be a moving power, helping 
 them to struggle out of their present envi 
 ronment into a wider, sunnier one, the 
 one of the real orchards. How fresh, how 
 full of possibilities, is the world to the peo 
 ple who can keep the child heart, and above 
 all to the people who are able to see or 
 chards in window-boxes! " 
 
 Another day. "Lisa s daily lesson is 
 just finished. It was in arithmetic, and 
 I should have lost patience had it not been 
 for her musical achievements this morning. 
 Edith played the airs of twenty or thirty 
 games, and without a word of help from us 
 she associated the right memory with each, 
 and illustrated it with pantomime. In some 
 cases, she invented gestures of her own that 
 showed deeper intuition than ours; and 
 when, last of all, the air of the Carrier 
 Doves was played, a vision of our Solitary 
 must have come before her mind. Her lip 
 trembling, she held an imaginary letter in 
 her fingers, and, brushing back the hair 
 from her forehead (his very gesture!), she 
 passed her hand across her eyes, laid the 
 make-believe note in Rhoda s apron, and 
 slipped out of the door without a word. 
 
158 MARM LISA. 
 
 " Mr. Man! Mr. Man! It is Mr. Man 
 when he couldn t read his letter! cried 
 the children. Why doesn t he come to 
 see us any more, Miss Rhoda? 
 
 " He is doing some work for Miss Mary, 
 I think, answered Rhoda, with a teasing 
 look at me. 
 
 "Lisa came back just then, and rubbed 
 her cheek against my arm. I went to the 
 corner, she whispered, but he wasn t 
 there ; he is never there now ! 
 
 "It was the remembrance of this aston 
 ishing morning that gave me courage in the 
 later lesson. She seems to have no idea of 
 numbers, there will be great difficulty 
 there, but she begins to read well, and 
 the marvel of it is that she has various tal 
 ents! She is weak, uneducated; many 
 things are either latent or altogether miss 
 ing in her as yet, and I do not know how 
 many of them will appear, nor how long a 
 process it will be ; but her mind is full of 
 compensations, and that is the last thing I 
 expected. It is only with infinite struggle 
 that she learns anything, though she is ca 
 pable of struggle, and that is a good deal to 
 say ; but she has besides a precious heritage 
 of instincts and insights, hitherto unsus- 
 
LEAVES FROM MARTS GARDEN. 159 
 
 pected and never drawn upon. It is pre 
 cisely as if there had been a bundle of pos 
 sibilities folded away somewhere in her 
 brain, but hidden by an intervening veil, or 
 crushed by some alien weight. We seem 
 to have drawn away that curtain or lifted 
 that weight, and the faculties so long ob 
 scured are stretching themselves and grow 
 ing with their new freedom. It reminds 
 me of the weak, stunted grass blades under 
 a stone. I am always lifting it and rolling 
 it away, sentimentally trying to give the 
 struggling shoots a chance. One can see 
 for many a long day where the stone has 
 been, but the grass forgets it after a while, 
 when it breathes the air and sunshine, tastes 
 the dew and rain, and feels the miracle of 
 growth within its veins." 
 
 Another day. " The twins are certainly 
 improving a trifle. They are by no means 
 angelic, but they are at least growing hu 
 man; and if ever their tremendous energy 
 a very whirlwind is once turned in the 
 right direction, we shall see things move, I 
 warrant you! Rhoda says truly that the 
 improvement cannot be seen with the naked 
 eye ; but the naked eye is never in use with 
 
160 HARM LISA. 
 
 us, in our work, nor indeed with the Father 
 of Lights, who teaches us all to see truly if 
 we will. 
 
 " The young minister has spent a morning 
 with us. He came to make my acquaint 
 ance, shook me warmly by the hand, and 
 that was the last I saw of him, for he 
 kept as close to Rhoda s side as circum 
 stances would permit! The naked eye is 
 all one needs to discern his motives ! Psy 
 chological observations, indeed! Child 
 study, forsooth! It was lovely to see 
 Rhoda s freshness, spontaneity, and uncon 
 sciousness, as she flitted about like a pretty 
 cardinal-bird. Poor young minister, whose 
 heart is dangling at the strings of her scar 
 let apron! Lucky young minister, if his 
 arm ever goes about that slender red-rib 
 boned waist, and his lips ever touch that 
 glowing cheek! But poor me! what will 
 the garden be without our crimson rose?" 
 
XIV. 
 
 MORE LEAVES. 
 
 "!T has been one of the discouraging 
 days. Lisa was willful; the twins had a 
 moral relapse; the young minister came 
 again, and, oh, the interminable length of 
 time he held Rhoda s hand at parting! Is 
 it not strange that, with the whole universe 
 to choose from, his predatory eye must fall 
 upon my blooming Rhoda? I wonder 
 whether the fragrance she will shed upon 
 that one small parsonage will be as widely 
 disseminated as the sweetness she exhales 
 here, day by day, among our 4 little people 
 all in a row ? I am not sure ; I hope so ; 
 at any rate, selfishness must not be suffered 
 to eclipse my common sense, and the young 
 minister seems a promising, manly fellow. 
 
 "When we have had a difficult day, I go 
 home and sit down in my cosy comer in the 
 twilight, the time and place where I always 
 repeat my credo, which is this : 
 
 "It is the children of this year, of every 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 new year, who are to bring the full dawn, 
 that dawn that has been growing since first 
 the world began. It is not only that chil 
 dren re-create the world year by year, de 
 cade by decade, by making over human 
 nature ; by transforming trivial, thoughtless 
 men and women into serious, earnest ones ; 
 by waking in arid natures slumbering seeds 
 of generosity, self-sacrifice, and helpfulness. 
 It is not alone in this way that children are 
 bringing the dawn of the perfect day. It 
 is the children (bless them! how naughty 
 they were to-day !) who are going to do all 
 we have left undone, all we have failed to 
 do, all we might have done had we been 
 wise enough, all we have been too weak and 
 stupid to do. 
 
 "Among the thousands of tiny things 
 growing up all over the land, some of them 
 under my very wing, watched and tended, 
 unwatched and untended, loved, unloved, 
 protected from danger, thrust into tempta 
 tion, among them somewhere is the child 
 who will write a great poem that will live 
 forever and ever, kindling every generation 
 to a loftier ideal. There is the child who 
 will write the novel that is to stir men s 
 hearts to nobler issues and incite them to 
 
MORE LEAVES. 163 
 
 better deeds. There is the child (perhaps 
 it is Nino) who will paint the greatest pic 
 ture or carve the greatest statue of the age : 
 another who will deliver his country in an 
 hour of peril; another who will give his life 
 for a great principle; and another, born 
 more of the spirit than the flesh, who will 
 live continually on the heights of moral 
 being, and dying, draw men after him. It 
 may be I shall preserve one of these chil 
 dren to the race, who knows ? It is a 
 peg big enough on which to hang a hope, 
 for every child born into the world is a new 
 incarnate thought of God, an ever fresh and 
 radiant possibility." 
 
 Another day. "Would I had the gift 
 to capture Mrs. Grubb and put her between 
 the covers of a book ! 
 
 "It tickles Rhoda s fancy mightily that 
 the Vague Lady (as we call her) should take 
 Lisa before the Commissioners of Lunacy ! 
 Rhoda says that if she has an opportunity 
 to talk freely with them, they will inevita 
 bly jump at the conclusion that Lisa has 
 brought her for examination, as she is so 
 much the more irrational of the two ! Rhoda 
 facetiously imagines a scene in which a rev- 
 
164 MARM LISA. 
 
 erend member of the body takes Lisa aside 
 and says solemnly, My dear child, you 
 have been wise beyond your years in bring 
 ing us your guardian, and we cannot allow 
 her to be at large another day, lest she be 
 come suddenly violent. 
 
 " Of late I have noticed that she has grad 
 ually dropped one club and society after 
 another, concentrating her attention more 
 and more upon Theosophy. Every strange 
 weed and sucker that can grow anywhere 
 flourishes in the soil of her mind, and if a 
 germ of truth or common sense does chance 
 to exist in any absurd theory, it is choked 
 by the time it has lain there among the un 
 derbrush for a little space; so that when 
 she begins her harvesting (which is always 
 a long while before anything is ripe), one 
 can never tell precisely what sort of crop 
 was planted. 
 
 "It seems that the Theosophists are con 
 sidering the establishment of a colony of 
 Mahatmas at Mojave, on the summit of the 
 Tehachapi Mountains. Their present hab 
 itat is the Himalayas, but there is no reason 
 why we should not encourage them to settle 
 in this country. The Tehachapis would 
 give as complete retirement as the Hima- 
 
MORE LEAVES. 165 
 
 lay as, while the spiritual advantages to be 
 derived from an infusion of Mahatmas into 
 our population is self-evident. Think, my 
 sisters, Mrs. Grubb would say, think, 
 that our mountain ranges may some time 
 be peopled by omniscient beings thousands 
 of years old and still growing ! Up to this 
 last aberration I have had some hope of 
 Grubb o Dreams. I thought it a good 
 sign, her giving up so many societies and 
 meetings. The house is not any tidier, but 
 at least she stays in it occasionally. In the 
 privacy of my own mind I have been ascrib 
 ing this slight reformation to the most ordi 
 nary cause, namely, a Particular Man. 
 It would never have occurred to me in her 
 case had not Edith received confidential 
 advices from Mrs. Sylvester. 
 
 " We re going to lose her, I feel it! 
 said Mrs. Sylvester. I feel it, and she 
 alludes to it herself. There ain t but two 
 ways of her classes losing her, death and 
 marriage; and as she looks too healthy to 
 die, it must be the other one. She s never 
 accepted any special attentions till about a 
 month ago, when the Improved Order of 
 Ked Men held their Great Council here. 
 You see she used to be Worthy Wenonah 
 
MARM LISA. 
 
 of Pocahontas Lodge years ago, when my 
 husband was Great Keeper of the Wampum, 
 but she hasn t attended regularly; a woman 
 is so handicapped, when it comes to any 
 kind of public work, by her home and her 
 children. I do hope I shall live long 
 enough to see all those kind of harassing 
 duties performed in public, cooperative in 
 stitutions. She went to the Council to 
 keep me company, mostly, but the very first 
 evening I could see that William Burk- 
 hardt, of Bald Eagle No. 62, was struck 
 with her; she lights up splendidly, Mrs. 
 Grubb does. He stayed with her every 
 chance he got during the week: but I did 
 n t see her give him any encouragement, 
 and I should never have thought of it again 
 if she hadn t come home late from one of 
 the Council Fires at the Wigwam. I was 
 just shutting my bedroom blinds. I tried 
 not to listen, for I despise eavesdropping, of 
 all things, but I couldn t help hearing her 
 say, "No, Mr. Burkhardt, you are only a 
 Junior Sagamore, and I am ambitious. 
 When you are a Great Sachem, it will be 
 time enough to consider the matter." 
 
 "Mrs. Sylvester, Edith, and I agreed 
 that this was most significant, but we may 
 
MORE LEAVES. 167 
 
 have been mistaken, according to her latest 
 development. The c passing away so feel 
 ingly alluded to by Mrs. Sylvester is to be 
 of a different sort. She has spoken myste 
 riously to me before of her reasons for deny 
 ing herself luxuries; of the goal she ex 
 pected to reach through rigid denial of the 
 body and training of the spirit ; of her long 
 ing to come less in contact with the foul 
 magnetism of the common herd, so detri 
 mental to her growth ; but she formally an 
 nounced to me in strict confidence to-day 
 her ambition to be a Mahatma. Of course 
 she has been so many things that there are 
 comparatively few left; still, say whatever 
 we like, she has the spirit of all the Argo 
 nauts, that woman ! She has been an Ini 
 tiate for some time, and considers herself 
 quite ready for the next step, which is to be 
 a Chela. It is unnecessary to state that 
 she climbs the ladder of evolution much 
 faster than the ordinary Theosophist, who is 
 somewhat slow in his movements, and often 
 deals in centuries, or even aBons. 
 
 " I did not know that there were female 
 Mahatmas, reasoning unconsciously from 
 the fact that an Adept is supposed to hold 
 his peace for many years before he can even 
 
168 
 
 MARM LISA. 
 
 contemplate the possibility of being a Ma- 
 hatma. (The idea of Grubb o Dreams 
 holding her peace is too absurd for argu 
 ment.) There are many grades of Adepts, 
 it seems, ranging from the topmost Ma- 
 hatmas down. The highest of all, the Nir- 
 manakayas, are self-conscious without the 
 body, traveling hither and thither with but 
 one object, that of helping humanity. As 
 we descend the scale, we find Adepts (and 
 a few second-class Mahatmas) living in the 
 body, for the wheel of Karma has not en 
 tirely revolved for them; but they have a 
 key to their prison (that is what Mrs. 
 Grubb calls her nice, pretty body!), and 
 can emerge from it at pleasure. That is, 
 any really capable and energetic Adept can 
 project his soul from its prison to any place 
 that he pleases, with the rapidity of thought. 
 I may have my personal doubts as to the 
 possibilities of this gymnastic feat, but Mrs. 
 Grubb s intellectual somersaults have been 
 of such thoroughness and frequency that I 
 am sure, if anybody can perform the gyra 
 tion, she can ! Meantime, there are decades 
 of retirement, meditation, and preparation 
 necessary, and she can endure nothing of 
 that sort in this present incarnation, so the 
 parting does not seem imminent ! 
 
MORE LEAVES. 169 
 
 "She came to consult me about Soul 
 Haven for the twins. I don t think it a 
 wholly bad plan. The country is better 
 for them than the city ; we can manage 
 to get occasional news of their welfare ; it 
 will tide over the brief interval of time 
 needed by Mrs. Grubb for growing into a 
 Chela; and in any event, they are sure to 
 run away from the Haven as soon as they 
 become at all conscious of their souls, a 
 moment which I think will be considerably 
 delayed. 
 
 "Mrs. Grubb will not yield Lisa until 
 she is certain that the Soul Haven colonists 
 will accept the twins without a caretaker, 
 but unless the matter is quietly settled by 
 the new year I shall find some heroic means 
 of changing her mind. I have considered 
 the matter earnestly for many months with 
 out knowing precisely how to find sufficient 
 money for the undertaking. My own in 
 come can be stretched to cover her mainte 
 nance, but it is not sufficient to give her 
 the proper sort of education. She is beyond 
 my powers now, and perhaps nay, of a 
 certainty, if her health continues to improve 
 five years of skillful teaching will make 
 her what it will make her no one can 
 
170 MARM LISA. 
 
 prophesy, but it is sure to be something 
 worth working for. No doubt I can get the 
 money by a public appeal, and if it were 
 for a dozen children instead of one, I would 
 willingly do it, as indeed I have done it 
 many times in the past. 
 
 "That was a beautiful thought of Pastor 
 Von Bodelschwingh, of the Colony of Mercy 
 in Germany. Mr. Man told me about 
 him in one of the very few long talks we 
 had together. He had a home for adults 
 and children of ailing mind and body, and 
 when he wanted a new house for the little 
 ones, and there was no money to build or 
 equip it, he asked every parent in Germany 
 for a thank-offering to the Lord of one 
 penny for each well child. Within a short 
 fortnight four hundred thousand pennies 
 flowed in, four hundred thousand thank- 
 offerings for children strong and well. The 
 good pastor s wish was realized, and his 
 Baby Castle an accomplished fact. Not 
 only did the four hundred thousand pennies 
 come, but the appeal for them stimulated a 
 new sense of gratitude among all the parents 
 who responded, so that there came pretty, 
 touching messages from all sides, such as: 
 4 Four pennies for four living children ; for 
 
MORE LEAVES. 171 
 
 a child in heaven, two. Six pennies for 
 a happy home. One penny for the child 
 we never had. Five pennies for a good 
 wife. 
 
 "Ah! never, surely, was a Baby Castle 
 framed of such lovely timber as this! It 
 seems as if heaven s sweet air must play 
 about the towers, and heaven s sunshine 
 stream in at every window, of a house built 
 from turret to foundation-stone of such 
 royal material. The Castle might look like 
 other castles, but every enchanted brick and 
 stone and block of wood, every grain of 
 mortar, every bit of glass and marble, un 
 like all others of its kind, would be trans 
 formed by the thought it represented and 
 thrilled with the message it bore. 
 
 "Such an appeal I could make for my 
 whole great family, but somehow this seems 
 almost a private matter, and I am sensitive 
 about giving it publicity. My love and 
 hope for Lisa are so great I cannot bear to 
 describe her case, nor paint her unhappy 
 childhood in the hues it deserves, for the 
 sake of gaining sympathy and aid. I may 
 have to do it, but would I were the little 
 Croesus of a day ! Still, Christmas is com 
 ing, and who knows? 
 
172 MARM LISA. 
 
 Everywhere the Feast o the Babe, 
 Joy upon earth, peace and good- will to men ! 
 We are baptized. 
 
 Merry Christmas is coming. Everybody s 
 hand-grasp is warmer because of it, though 
 of course it is the children whose merriment 
 rings truest. 
 
 "There are just one or two things, grown 
 up as I am, that I should like to find in the 
 toe of my stocking on Christmas morning; 
 only they are impalpable things that could 
 neither be put in nor taken out of real 
 stockings. 
 
 "Old as we are, we are most of us mere 
 children in this, that we go on hoping that 
 next Christmas all the delicious happenings 
 we have missed in other Christmases may 
 descend upon us by the old and reliable 
 chimney route! A Santa Claus that had 
 any bowels of compassion would rush down 
 the narrowest and sootiest chimney in the 
 world to give me my simple wishes. It 
 is n t as if I were petitioning nightly for a 
 grand house, a yacht, a four-in-hand, a dia 
 mond necklace, and a particular man for a 
 husband; but I don t see that modesty finds 
 any special favor with St. Nick. Now and 
 then I harbor a rascally suspicion that he 
 
MORE LEAVES. 173 
 
 is an indolent, time-serving person, who 
 slips down the widest, cleanest chimneys to 
 the people who clamor the loudest ; but this 
 abominable cynicism melts into thin air the 
 moment that I look at his jolly visage on 
 the cover of a picture-book. Dear, fat, 
 rosy, radiant Being! Surely he is inca 
 pable of any but the highest motives ! I am 
 twenty-eight years old, but age shall never 
 make any difference in the number or extent 
 of my absurdities. I am going to write a 
 letter and send it up the chimney ! It never 
 used to fail in the long-ago; but ah! then 
 there were two dear, faithful go-betweens to 
 interpret my childish messages of longing 
 to Santa Glaus, and jog his memory at the 
 critical time! " 
 
XV. 
 
 "THE FEAST o THE BABE." 
 
 IT was sure to be a green Christmas in 
 that sunny land, but not the sort of "green 
 Yule" that makes the "fat kirkyard." If 
 the New Englanders who had been trans 
 planted to that shore of the Pacific ever 
 longed for a bracing snowstorm, for frost 
 pictures on the window-panes, for the breath 
 of a crystal air blown over ice-fields, - an 
 air that nipped the ears, but sent the blood 
 coursing through the veins, and made the 
 turkey and cranberry sauce worth eating, 
 the happy children felt no lack, and basked 
 contentedly in the soft December sunshine. 
 Still farther south there were mothers who 
 sighed even more for the sound of merry 
 sleigh-bells, the snapping of logs on the 
 hearth, the cosy snugness of a firelit room 
 made all the snugger by the fierce wind 
 without; that, if you like, was a place to 
 hang a row of little red and brown woolen 
 stockings! And when the fortunate chil- 
 
THE FEAST THE BABE. 175 
 
 dren on the eastern side of the Eockies, 
 tired with resisting the Sand Man, had 
 snuggled under the great down comforters 
 and dropped off to sleep, they dreamed, of 
 course, of the proper Christmas things, 
 of the tiny feet of reindeer pattering over 
 the frozen crust, the tinkle of silver bells 
 on their collars, the real Santa Glaus with 
 icicles in his beard, with red cheeks, and a 
 cold nose, and a powder of snow on his 
 bearskin coat, and with big fur mittens 
 never too clumsy to take the toys from his 
 pack. 
 
 Here the air blew across orange groves 
 and came laden with the sweetness of open 
 ing buds; here, if it were a sunny Christ 
 mas Day, as well it might be, the children 
 came in to dinner tired with playing in the 
 garden: but the same sort of joyous cries 
 that rent the air three thousand miles away 
 at sight of hot plum pudding woke the 
 echoes here because of fresh strawberries 
 and loquats; and although, in the minds of 
 the elders, who had been born in snowdrifts 
 and bred upon icicles, this union of balmy 
 air, singing birds, and fragrant bloom might 
 strike a false note at Christmastide, it 
 brought nothing but joy to the children. 
 
176 HARM LISA. 
 
 After all, if it were not for old association s 
 sake, it would seem that one might fitly 
 celebrate the birthday of the Christ-child 
 under sunshine as warm and skies of the 
 same blue as those that sheltered the heav 
 enly Babe in old Judea. 
 
 During the late days of October and the 
 early days of November the long drought of 
 summer had been broken, and it had rained 
 steadily, copiously, refreshingly. Since 
 then there had been day after day of bril 
 liant, cloudless sunshine, and the moist 
 earth, warmed gratefully through to the 
 marrow, stirred and trembled and pushed 
 forth myriads of tender shoots from the 
 seeds that were hidden in its bosom; and 
 the tender shoots themselves looked up to 
 the sun, and, with their roots nestled in 
 sweet, fragrant beds of richness, thought 
 only of growing tall and green, dreamed 
 only of the time when pink pimpernels 
 would bloom between their waving blades, 
 and when tribes of laughing children would 
 come to ramble over the hillsides. The 
 streets of the city were full of the fragrance 
 of violets, for the flower -venders had great 
 baskets of them over their arms, and on 
 every corner tempted the passers-by with 
 
THE FEAST THE BABE. 177 
 
 the big odorous purple bunches that offered 
 a royal gift of sweetness for every penny 
 invested. 
 
 Atlantic and Pacific Simonson had pre 
 viously known little, and Marm Lisa less, 
 of Christmas time, but the whole month of 
 December in Mistress Mary s garden was 
 a continual feast of the new-born Babe. 
 There was an almost oppressive atmosphere 
 of secrecy abroad. Each family of chil 
 dren, working in the retirement of its par 
 ticular corner, would shriek, "Oh, don t 
 come!" and hide small objects under pina 
 fores and tables when Mary, Ehoda, Edith, 
 or Helen appeared. The neophyte in charge 
 was always in the attitude of a surprised 
 hen, extending her great apron to its utmost 
 area as a screen to hide these wonderful 
 preparations. Edith s group was slaving 
 over Helen s gift, Rhoda s over Edith s, 
 and so on, while all the groups had some 
 marvelous bit of cooperative work in hand 
 for Mistress Mary. At the afternoon coun 
 cil, the neophytes were obliged to labor con 
 scientiously on presents destined for them 
 selves, rubbing off stains, disentangling 
 knots, joining threads, filling up wrong 
 holes and punching right ones, surrepti- 
 
178 HARM LISA. 
 
 tiously getting the offerings of love into a 
 condition where the energetic infants could 
 work on them again. It was somewhat 
 difficult to glow and pale with surprise when 
 they received these well-known and well- 
 worn trophies of skill from the tree at the 
 proper time, but they managed to achieve 
 it. 
 
 Never at any other season was there such 
 scrubbing of paws, and in spite of the most 
 devoted sacrifices to the Moloch of cleanli 
 ness the excited little hands grew first moist, 
 and then grimy, nobody knew how. "It 
 must leak out of the inside of me," wailed 
 Bobby Baxter when sent to the pump for 
 the third time one morning; but he went 
 more or less cheerfully, for his was the 
 splendid honor of weaving a frame for Lisa s 
 picture, and he was not the man to grudge 
 an inch or two of skin if thereby he might 
 gain a glorious immortality. 
 
 The principal conversation during this 
 festival time consisted of phrases like: "I 
 know what you re goin to have, Miss 
 Edith, but I won t tell!" "Miss Mary, 
 Sally most told Miss Rhoda what she was 
 makin for her." "Miss Helen, Pat Hig- 
 gins went right up to Miss Edith and asked 
 
THE FEAST THE BABE. 179 
 
 her to help him mend the leg of his clay 
 frog, and it s his own Christmas present 
 for her!" 
 
 The children could not for the life of 
 them play birds, or butterflies, or carpenter, 
 or scissors-grinder, for they wanted to shout 
 the livelong day, 
 
 " Christmas bells are ringing sweet, 
 We too the happy day must greet ; " 
 
 or, 
 
 " Under the holly, now, 
 
 Sing and be jolly, now, 
 Christmas has come and the children are glad ; " 
 
 or, - 
 
 " Hurrah for Santa Glaus ! 
 Long may he live at his castle in Somewhere-land ! 
 
 There was much whispering and discus 
 sion about evergreens and garlands and 
 wreaths that were soon to come, and much 
 serious planning with regard to something 
 to be made for mother, father, sister, bro 
 ther, and the baby; something, too, now 
 and then, for a grandpapa in Sweden, a 
 grandmamma in Scotland, a Norwegian 
 uncle, an Irish aunt, and an Italian cousin ; 
 but there was never by chance any cogita 
 tion as to what the little workers themselves 
 might get. In the happier homes among 
 them, there was doubtless the usual legiti- 
 
180 MARM LISA. 
 
 mate speculation as to doll or drum, but 
 here in this enchanted spot, this material 
 ized Altruria, the talk was all of giving, 
 when the Wonderful Tree bloomed in their 
 midst, the Wonderful Tree they sang 
 about every morning, with the sweet voice 
 
 " telling- its branches among 
 Of shepherd s watch and of angel s song, 
 Of lovely Babe in manger low, 
 The beautiful story of long ago, 
 When a radiant star threw its beams so wide 
 To herald the earliest Christmastide." 
 
 The Tree was coming, - Mistress Mary 
 said so ; and bless my heart, you might pos 
 sibly meddle with the revolution of the earth 
 around the sun, or induce some weak-minded 
 planet to go the wrong way, but you would 
 be helpless to reverse one of Mistress Mary s 
 promises! They were as fixed and as un 
 changeable as the laws of the Medes and 
 Persians, and there was a record of their 
 fulfillment indelibly written in the memories 
 of two hundred small personages, person 
 ages in whom adult caprice and flexibility of 
 conduct had bred a tendency to suspicion. 
 
 The Tree, therefore, had been coming for 
 a fortnight, and on the 22d it came ! Nei 
 ther did it come alone, for it was accompa 
 nied by a forest of holly and mistletoe, and 
 
THE FEAST THE BABE. 181 
 
 ropes of evergreen, and wreaths and gar 
 lands of laurel, and green stars by the 
 dozen. And in a great box, at present hid 
 den from the children, were heaps of can 
 dles, silver and crystal baubles, powdered 
 snowflakes, glass icicles, gilded nuts, party- 
 colored spheres, cornucopias full of goodies, 
 and, above all, two wonderful Christmas 
 angels and a snow-white dove ! 
 
 Neither tree, nor garlands, nor box con 
 tained any hint of the donor, to the great 
 disappointment of the neophytes. Rhoda 
 had an idea, for Cupid had "clapped her i 
 the shoulder," and her intuitions were pre- 
 ternaturally keen just now. Mary almost 
 knew, though she had never been in love 
 in her life, and her faculties were working 
 only in their every-day fashion ; but she was 
 not in the least surprised when she drew a 
 letter from under the white dove s wing. 
 Seeing that it was addressed to her, she 
 waited until everybody had gone, and sat 
 under the pepper-tree in the deserted play 
 ground where she might read it in solitude. 
 
 "DEAR MISTRESS MARY," it said, "do 
 you care to hear of my life? 
 
 4 Das Ewig-Weibliche 
 Zieht uns hinan, 
 
182 HARM LISA. 
 
 and I am growing olives. Do you remem 
 ber what the Spanish monk said to the tree 
 that he pruned, and that cried out under his 
 hook ? It is not beauty that is wanted of 
 you, nor shade, but olives. The sun is 
 hot, and it has not rained for many a long 
 week, it seems to me, but the dew of your 
 influence falls ever sweet and fresh on the 
 dust of my daily task. 
 
 "Inclosed please find the wherewithal for 
 Lisa s next step higher. As she needs more 
 it will come. I give it for sheer gratitude, 
 as the good folk gave their pennies to Pas 
 tor Von Bodelschwingh. Why am I grate 
 ful ? For your existence, to be sure ! I had 
 lived my life haunted by the feeling that 
 there was such a woman, and finally the 
 mysterious wind of destiny blew me to her, 
 as the tempest brings the rose-tree to the 
 pollard willow. 
 
 "Do not be troubled about me, little 
 mother-of -many ! There was once upon a 
 time a common mallow by the roadside, and 
 being touched by Mohammed s garment as 
 he passed it was changed at once into a 
 geranium; and best of all, it remained a 
 geranium forever after. 
 
 "YouR SOLITARY." 
 
XVI. 
 
 CLEANSING FIKES. 
 
 IT was the afternoon of the day before 
 Christmas, and all the little people had gone 
 home, leaving the room vacant for the deck 
 ing of the Wonderful Tree. Edith, Helen, 
 and others were perched on step-ladders, 
 festooning garlands and wreaths from win 
 dow to window, and post to post. Mary 
 and Khoda were hanging burdens of joy 
 among the green branches of the tree. 
 
 The room began to look more and more 
 lovely as the evergreen stars were hung by 
 scarlet ribbons in each of the twelve win 
 dows, and the picture-frames were crowned 
 with holly branches. Then Mistress Mary 
 was elevated to a great height on a pyramid 
 of tables and chairs, and suspended the two 
 Christmas angels by invisible wires from 
 the ceiling. When the chorus of admira 
 tion had subsided, she took the white dove 
 tenderly from Rhoda s upstretched hands 
 (and what a charming Christmas picture 
 
HARM 
 
 they made, the eager upturned rosy face 
 of the one, the gracious fairness of the 
 other!) and laying its soft breast against 
 her cheek for a moment, perched it on the 
 topmost branch of waving green with a 
 thought of "Mr. Man," and a hope that 
 the blessed day might bring him a tithe of 
 the cheer he had given them. The effect of 
 the dove and the angels was so electrical 
 that all the fresh young voices burst into 
 the chorus of the children s hymn: 
 
 He was born upon this day 
 In David s town so far away, 
 He the good and loving One, 
 Mary s ever-blessed Son. 
 Let us all our voices lend, 
 For He was the children s Friend, 
 He so lovely, He so mild, 
 Jesus, blessed Christmas Child ! 
 
 As the last line of the chorus floated 
 through the open windows, an alarm of 
 fire sounded, followed by a jangle of bells 
 and a rumble of patrol wagons. On going 
 to the west window, Edith saw a blaze of 
 red light against the sky, far in the dis 
 tance, in the direction of Lone Mountain. 
 Soon after, almost on the heels of the first, 
 came another alarm, with its attendant 
 clangings, its cries of "Fire!" its chatter- 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 185 
 
 ings and conjectures, its rushing of small 
 boys in all directions, its tread of hurrying 
 policemen, its hasty flinging up of windows 
 and grouping of heads therein. 
 
 The girls were too busy labeling the chil 
 dren s gifts to listen attentively to the con 
 fused clamor in the streets, fires were 
 common enough in a city built of wood; 
 but when, half an hour after the first and 
 second alarms, a third sounded, they con 
 cluded it must be a conflagration, and Rhoda, 
 dropping her nuts and cornucopias, ran to 
 the corner for news. She was back again 
 almost immediately, excited and breathless. 
 "Oh, Mary!" she exclaimed, her hand 
 on her panting side, "unless they are mis 
 taken, it is three separate fires : one, a livery- 
 stable and carriage -house out towards Lone 
 Mountain ; another fearful one on Telegraph 
 Hill, a whole block of houses, and they 
 haven t had enough help there because of 
 the Lone Mountain fire; now there s a third 
 alarm, and they say it s at the corner of 
 Sixth and Dutch streets. If it is, we have 
 a tenement house next door; isn t that 
 clothing-place on the corner? Yes, I know 
 it is; make haste! Edith and Helen will 
 watch the Christmas things." 
 
186 HARM LISA. 
 
 Mary did not need to be told to hasten. 
 She had her hat in her hand and was on the 
 sidewalk before Ehoda had fairly finished 
 her sentence. 
 
 They hurried through the streets, guided 
 by the cloud of smoke that gushed from the 
 top of a building in the near distance. Al 
 most everybody was running in the opposite 
 direction, attracted by the Telegraph Hill 
 fire that flamed vermilion and gold against 
 the gray sky, looking from its elevation like 
 a mammoth bonfire, or like a hundred sun 
 sets massed in one lurid pile of color. 
 
 "Is it the Golden Gate tenement house?" 
 they asked of the neighborhood locksmith, 
 who was walking rapidly towards them. 
 
 "No, it s the coat factory next door," he 
 answered, hurriedly. " T would n t be so 
 much of a blaze if they could get the fire 
 company here to put it out before it gets 
 headway; but it s one o those blind fires 
 that s been sizzling away inside the walls 
 for an hour. The folks didn t know they 
 was afire till a girl ran in and told em, 
 your Lisa it was, and they didn t believe 
 her at first; but it war n t a minute before 
 the flames burst right through the plastering 
 in half a dozen places to once. I tell you 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 187 
 
 they just dropped everything where it was 
 and run for their lives. There war n t but 
 one man on the premises, and he was such 
 a blamed fool he wasted five minutes trying 
 to turn the alarm into the letter-box on the 
 lamp -post, stead of the right one alongside. 
 I m going home for some tools Hullo ! 
 there s the flames coming through one cor 
 ner o the roof; that s the last o the fac 
 tory, I guess; but it ain t much loss, any 
 way; it s a reg lar sweatin -shop. They 11 
 let it go now, and try to save the buildings 
 each side of it, that s what they 11 do." 
 
 That is what they were doing when Mary 
 and Rhoda broke away from the voluble 
 locksmith in the middle of his discourse and 
 neared the scene of excitement. The fire 
 men had not yet come, though it was ru 
 mored that a detachment was on the way. 
 All the occupants of the tenement house 
 were taking their goods and chattels out, 
 running down the narrow stairways with 
 feather-beds, dropping clocks and china 
 ornaments from the windows, and endanger 
 ing their lives by crawling down the fire- 
 escapes with small articles of no value. 
 Men were scarce at that hour in that local 
 ity, but there was a good contingent of 
 
188 HARM LISA. 
 
 small shopkeepers and gentlemen-of -steady- 
 leisure, who were on the roof pouring water 
 over wet blankets and comforters and car 
 pets. A crazy -looking woman in the fourth 
 story kept dipping a child s handkerchief in 
 and out of a bowl of water and wrapping it 
 about a tomato-can with a rosebush planted 
 in it. Another, very much intoxicated, 
 leaned from her window, and, regarding the 
 whole matter as an agreeable entertainment, 
 called down humorous remarks and ribald 
 jokes to the oblivious audience. There was 
 an improvised hook-and-ladder company 
 pouring water where it was least needed, 
 and a zealous self-appointed commanding 
 officer who did nothing but shout contradic 
 tory orders; but as nobody obeyed them, 
 and every man did just as he was inclined, 
 it did not make any substantial difference 
 in the result. 
 
 Mary and Rhoda made their way through 
 the mass of interested spectators, not so 
 many here as on the cooler side of the 
 street. Where was Lisa? That was the 
 first, indeed the only question. How had 
 she come there? Where had she gone? 
 There was a Babel of confusion, but nothing 
 like the uproar that would have been heard 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 189 
 
 had not part of the district s population fled 
 to the more interesting fire, and had not the 
 whole thing been so quiet and so lightning- 
 quick in its progress. The whole scene now 
 burst upon their view. A few harassed 
 policemen had stretched ropes across the 
 street, and were trying to keep back the 
 rebellious ones in the crowd who ever and 
 anon would struggle under the line and have 
 to be beaten back by force. 
 
 As Mary and Rhoda approached, a group 
 on the outskirts cried out, "Here she is! 
 T ain t more n a minute sence they went to 
 tell her ! Here she is now ! " 
 
 The expected fire brigade could hardly 
 be called "she," Mary thought, as she 
 glanced over her shoulder. She could see 
 no special reason for any interest in her own 
 movements. She took advantage of the 
 parting of the crowd, however, and as she 
 made her way she heard, as in a waking 
 dream, disjointed sentences that had no 
 meaning at first, but being pieced together 
 grew finally into an awful whole. 
 
 "Why didn t the factory girls bring em 
 out? Did n t know they was there ? " 
 
 "Say, one of em was saved, war n t it?" 
 
 " Which one of em did she get down 
 before the roof caught? " 
 
190 MARM LISA. 
 
 "No, t ain t no such thing; the mana 
 ger s across the bay; she gave the alarm 
 herself." 
 
 "She didn t know they was in there; I 
 bet yer they d run and hid, and she was 
 hunting em when she seen the smoke." 
 
 " Yes, she did ; she dropped the girl twin 
 out the second-story window into Abe Isaac s 
 arms, but she did n t know the boy was in 
 the building till just now, and they can t 
 hardly hold her." 
 
 "She s foolish, anyhow, ain t she? " 
 
 Mary staggered beyond Rhoda to the 
 front of the crowd. 
 
 "Let me under the rope!" she cried, 
 with a mother s very wail in her tone, 
 "let me under the rope, for God s sake! 
 They re my children ! " 
 
 At this moment she heard a stentorian 
 voice call to some one, " Wait a minute till 
 the firemen get here, and they 11 go for 
 him! Come back, girl, d n you! you 
 shan t go!" 
 
 "Wait? No! Not wait!" cried Lisa, 
 tearing herself dexterously from the police 
 man s clutches, and dashing like a whirl 
 wind up the tottering stairway before any 
 one else could gather presence of mind to 
 seize and detain her. 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 191 
 
 Pacific was safe on the pavement, but she 
 had only a moment before been flung from 
 those flaming windows, and her terrified 
 shrieks rent the air. The crowd gave a 
 long-drawn groan, and mothers turned their 
 eyes away and shivered. Nobody followed 
 Marm Lisa up that flaming path of death 
 and duty : it was no use flinging a good life 
 after a worthless one. 
 
 "Fool! crazy fool!" people ejaculated, 
 with tears of reverence in their eyes. 
 
 "Darling, splendid fool!" cried Mary. 
 "Fool worth all the wise ones among us! " 
 
 "He that loseth his life for my sake shall 
 find it!" said a pious Methodist cobbler 
 with a patched boot under his arm. 
 
 In the eternity of waiting that was num 
 bered really but in seconds, a burly police 
 man beckoned four men and gave them a 
 big old-fashioned counterpane that some one 
 had offered, telling them to stand ready for 
 whatever might happen. 
 
 "Come closer, boys," said one of them, 
 wetting his hat in a tub of water : " if we 
 take a little scorchin doin this now, we 
 may git it cooler in the next world! " 
 
 "Amen! Trust the Lord!" said the 
 cobbler; and just then Marm Lisa appeared 
 
192 MAEM LISA. 
 
 at one of the top windows with a child in 
 her arms. No one else could have recog 
 nized Atlantic in the smoke, but Rhoda and 
 Mary knew the round cropped head and the 
 familiar blue gingham apron. 
 
 Lisa stood in the empty window-frame, a 
 trembling figure on a background of flame. 
 Her post was not at the moment in absolute 
 danger. There was hope yet, though to the 
 onlookers there seemed none. 
 
 "Throw him ! " "Drop him ! " "Le go 
 of him! " shouted the crowd. 
 
 "Hold your jaws, and let me do the talk 
 ing!" roared the policeman. "Stop your 
 noise, if you don t want two dead children 
 on your consciences! Keep back, you 
 brutes, keep back o the rope, or I 11 club 
 you!" 
 
 It was not so much the officer s threats 
 as simple, honest awe that caused a sudden 
 hush to fall. There were whispering, sighs, 
 tears, murmurings, but all so subdued that 
 it seemed like silence in the midst of the 
 fierce crackling of the flames. 
 
 "Drop him! We ll ketch him in the 
 quilt!" called the policeman, standing as 
 near as he dared. 
 
 Lisa looked shudderingly at the desperate 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 193 
 
 means of salvation so far below, and, turn 
 ing her face away as much as she could, 
 unclasped her arms despairingly, and Atlan 
 tic came swooping down from their shelter, 
 down, down into the counterpane ; stunned, 
 stifled, choked by smoke, but uninjured, as 
 Lisa knew by the cheers that greeted his 
 safe descent. 
 
 A tongue of fire curled round the corner 
 of the building and ran up to the roof to 
 wards another that was licking its way along 
 the top of the window. 
 
 "Jump now yourself! " called the police 
 man, while two more men silently joined 
 the four holding the corners of the quilt. 
 Every eye was fixed on the motionless figure 
 of Marm Lisa, who had drawn her shawl 
 over her head, as if just conscious of nearer 
 heat. 
 
 The wind changed, and blew the smoke 
 away from her figure. The men on the 
 roof stopped work, not caring for the mo 
 ment whether they sa,ved the tenement house 
 or not, since a human life was hanging in 
 the balance. The intoxicated woman threw 
 a beer-bottle into the street, and her son ran 
 up from the crowd and locked her safely in 
 her kitchen at the back of the house. 
 
194 
 
 MARM LISA. 
 
 "Jump this minute, or you re a dead 
 girl! " shouted the officer, hoarse with emo 
 tion. "God A mighty, she ain t goin to 
 jump, she s terror-struck! She ll burn 
 right there before our eyes, when we could 
 climb up and drag her down if we had a 
 long enough ladder!" 
 
 "They ve found another ladder, and are 
 tying two together," somebody said. 
 
 "The fire company s comin ! I hear 
 em! " cried somebody else. 
 
 "They ll be too late," moaned Rhoda, 
 "too late ! Oh, Mary, make her jump ! " 
 
 Lisa had felt no fear while she darted 
 through smoke and over charred floors in 
 pursuit of Atlantic, no fear, nothing but 
 joy when she dragged him out from under 
 a bench and climbed to the window-sill with 
 him, but now that he was saved she seemed 
 paralyzed. So still she was she might have 
 been a carven statue save for the fluttering 
 of the garments about her thin childish legs. 
 The distance to the ground looked impassa 
 ble, and she could not collect her thoughts 
 for the hissing of the flame as it ate up the 
 floor in the room behind her. Horrible as 
 it was, she thought it would be easier to let 
 it steal behind her and wrap her in its burn- 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 195 
 
 ing embrace than to drop from these dizzy 
 heights down through that terrible distance 
 to hear her own bones snap as she touched 
 the quilt, and to see her own blood staining 
 the ground. 
 
 44 She 11 burn, sure," said a man. " Well, 
 she s half witted, that s one comfort ! " 
 
 Mary started as if she were stung, and 
 forced her way still nearer to the window, 
 hoping to gain a position where she could 
 be more plainly seen. 
 
 Everybody thought something was going 
 to happen. Mary had dozens of friends and 
 more acquaintances in that motley assem 
 blage, and they somehow felt that there 
 were dramatic possibilities in the situation. 
 Unless she could think of something, Marm 
 Lisa s last chance was gone: that was the 
 sentiment of the crowd, and Mary agreed 
 in it. 
 
 Her cape had long since dropped from 
 her shoulders, her hat was trampled under 
 foot, the fair coil of hair had loosened and 
 was falling on her neck, and the steel fillet 
 blazed in the firelight. She stepped to the 
 quilt and made a despairing movement to 
 attract Lisa s attention. 
 
 "Li-sa! " she called, in that sweet, carry- 
 
196 MARM LISA. 
 
 ing woman s voice that goes so much farther 
 than a man s. 
 
 The child started, and, pushing back the 
 shawl, looked out from under its cover, her 
 head raised, her eyes brightening. 
 
 Mary chanced all on that one electrical 
 moment of recognition, and, with a mien 
 half commanding and half appealing, she 
 stretched out both her arms and called 
 again, while the crowd held its breath: 
 " Come to me, darling ! Jump, little sister ! 
 Now!" 
 
 Not one second did Marm Lisa hesitate. 
 She would have sprung into the fire at that 
 dear mandate, and, closing her eyes, she 
 leaped into the air as the roof above her 
 head fell in with a crash. 
 
 Just then the beating of hoofs and jang 
 ling of bells in the distance announced the 
 coming of the belated firemen; not so long 
 belated actually, for all the emotions, heart 
 beats, terrors, and despairs that go to make 
 up tragedy can be lived through in a few 
 brief moments. 
 
 In that sudden plunge from window to 
 earth Marm Lisa seemed to die consciously. 
 The gray world, the sad world, vanished, 
 "and the immortal light, all young and joy- 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 197 
 
 ful, million-orbed, million -colored," beamed 
 on her darkness. She kept on falling, fall 
 ing, falling, till she reached the abysmal 
 depths of space, then she knew no more : 
 and Mary, though prone on the earth, kept 
 falling, falling, falling with her into so deep 
 a swoon that she woke only to find herself 
 on a friendly bed, with Khoda, and Lisa 
 herself, weeping over her. 
 
 At five o clock, Mrs. Grubb, forcibly torn 
 from a meeting and acquainted with the af 
 ternoon s proceedings, hurried into a lower 
 room in the tenement house, where Mary, 
 Khoda, and the three children were gathered 
 for a time. There were still a hundred 
 people in the street, but they showed their 
 respect by keeping four or five feet away 
 from the windows. 
 
 The twins sat on a sofa, more quiet than 
 anything save death itself. They had been 
 rocked to the very centre of their being, 
 and looked like nothing so much as a couple 
 of faded photographs of themselves. Lisa 
 lay on a cot, sleeping restlessly; Mary 
 looked pale and wan, and there were dark 
 circles under her eyes. 
 
 As Mrs. Grubb opened the door softly, 
 Mary rose to meet her. 
 
198 MARM LISA. 
 
 "Have you heard all?" she asked. 
 
 "Yes, everything! " faltered Mrs. Grubb, 
 with quivering lips and downcast eyelids. 
 
 Mary turned towards Lisa s bed. "Mrs. 
 Grubb," she said, looking straight into that 
 lady s clear, shallow eyes, "I think Lisa 
 has earned her freedom, and I the right to 
 ask a Christmas gift of you. Stand on the 
 other side of the cot, and put your hand in 
 mine. I ask you for the last time, will you 
 give this unfinished, imperfect life into my 
 keeping, if I promise to be faithful to it 
 unto the end, whatever it may be? " 
 
 I suppose that every human creature, be 
 he ever so paltry, has his hour of effulgence, 
 an hour when the mortal veil grows thin and 
 the divine image stands revealed, endowing 
 him, for a brief space at least, with a kind 
 of awful beauty and majesty. 
 
 It was Mistress Mary s hour. Her pure, 
 unswerving spirit shone with a white and 
 steady radiance that illuminated Mrs. 
 Grubb s soul to its very depths, showing 
 her in a flash the feeble flickerings and 
 waverings of her own trivial purposes. At 
 that moment her eye was fitted with a new 
 lens, through which the road to the summit 
 of the Tehachapi Mountains and Mahat- 
 
CLEANSING FIRES. 199 
 
 madom suddenly looked long, weary, and 
 profitless, and by means of which the twins 
 were transferred from the comfortable mid 
 dle distance they had previously occupied to 
 the immediate foreground of duty. The 
 lens might slip, but while it was in place 
 she saw as clearly as another woman. 
 
 "Will you?" repeated Mistress Mary, 
 wondering at her silence. 
 
 Mrs. Grubb gave one last glance at the 
 still reproach of Lisa s face, and one more 
 at the twins, who seemed to loom more for 
 midably each time she regarded them ; then 
 drawing a deep breath, she said, "Yes, I 
 will; I will, no matter what happens; 
 but it isn t enough to give up, and you 
 needn t suppose I think it is." And tak 
 ing a passive twin by either hand, she passed 
 out of the door into the crowded thorough 
 fare, and disappeared in the narrow streets 
 that led to Eden Place. 
 
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