:, 
 
 3CRTRA/4Q 
 
 *i.RES Of- 
 
 ON BEACH. CAUF.
 
 MR. WAYTS WIFE'S SISTER
 
 MR. WAYT'S 
 
 WIFE'S SISTER 
 
 BY 
 
 MARION HARLAND 
 
 (Maiy Virginia Terhune) 
 
 AUTHOR OP "JUDITH," "WITH THK BEST INTENTIONS," "HANDICAPPED,' 
 
 " LOITERINGS IN PLEASANT PATHS," " COMMON SBNSB IN 
 
 THE HOUSEHOLD," ETC., ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 31 EAST I;TH ST. (UNION SQUARE;
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY 
 THE CASSELL PUBLISHING CO. 
 
 A II rights 
 
 THB MKRSHON COMPANY PRESS, 
 RAHWAY, N. J.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MR. WAVT'S WIFE'S SISTER, i 
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS 203 
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION 251 
 
 
 2061990
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 ONE breezy May day, such a little while ago 
 that it is hardly safe to name the year, a New 
 Jersey ferry "car-boat" was so far behind her time 
 that the 12.30 train for Fairhill left without wait- 
 ing for her. 
 
 Ignorant, or incredulous of the untoward hap- 
 pening, the passengers rushed for and through 
 the station to find egress discouraged by the im- 
 passive official whose stentorian tones were roar- 
 ing through the building the name and stopping 
 places of the next train. Among the foremost in 
 the pell-mell run was a hazel-eyed young man 
 with a gripsack in his hand, and the olive bronze 
 of a sea voyage upon a very good-looking face. 
 He was always persuaded that he could have 
 eluded the great-voiced doorkeeper and boarded 
 the last platform of the moving cars, had he not 
 run afoul of a wheeled chair midway between the 
 seats and inconveniently set radiators in the wait- 
 ing room, and narrowly escaped a "header." He
 
 2 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 did not actually fall; neither did he overset the 
 vehicle. Avoiding both calamities by vaulting 
 the dashboard and front wheels, he yet dropped 
 his hat and valise in different directions, and 
 brought up at an obtuse angle by catching at 
 one of the marble-topped radiators. The first use 
 he made of his hat, which was picked up by a 
 smiling bystander, was to lift it to a woman who 
 was propelling what he had mistaken for a baby's 
 perambulator. 
 
 "'I beg your pardon, I am sure!" he said, in 
 manly fashion. "I hope the" he was about to 
 say "baby," but changed the phraseology just in 
 time "that nobody was hurt!" 
 
 A glimpse of the occupant of the chair had 
 showed him a wan face too old for a child's, too 
 small for that of a grown person. Before the 
 woman addressed could reply, elfish accents, 
 husky and precise, said, "Not at all thank 
 you!" and there was a cackle of shrill, feeble 
 laughter. 
 
 The young fellow had lost the train that should 
 have returned him in forty minutes to the family 
 he had not seen in six months ; he was just off 
 shipboard, and felt the need of a bath and toilet 
 upon steady ground, with plenty of elbow room. 
 He had come near having a bad fall, and had not 
 missed making a ludicrous spectacle of himself 
 for the entertainment of a gaping crowd. But he 
 laughed in a jolly, gentlemanly way, and again
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 3 
 
 raising his hat passed on without a second glance 
 at the mute personage who had pushed the 
 wagon directly across his track. 
 
 Like the rest of the disappointed wayfarers he 
 walked quite up to the outlet of the station, and 
 peered anxiously through at the empty rails, still 
 vibrating from the wheels of the vanishing train, 
 yet he neither frowned nor swore. He did not 
 even ask: "When does the next train go to Fair- 
 hill?" The time-table in his pocket and that 
 upon the wall, set at "2 P. M.," told him all and 
 more than he wanted to know. The excitement 
 and suspense over, his inner man became impor- 
 tunate. He had had an early breakfast on the 
 City of Rome, and was far hungrier now than 
 then. Doubling upon his tracks, he repaired to 
 the restaurant in the same building with the 
 vast waiting room and offices. The place was 
 clean, and full of odors that, for a wonder, were 
 fresh and savory, instead of hanging on the air 
 and clinging to the walls like a viewless "In 
 Memoriam" of an innumerable caravan of dead- 
 and-gone feasts. The menu was promising to an 
 unsated appetite, and having given his order to 
 a waiter the even-tempered customer sat back in 
 his chair and surveyed the scene with the air of 
 one whose mind was, as the hymnist aptly puts 
 it, "at leisure from itself." 
 
 This lack of self-consciousness underlay much 
 that made March Gilchrist popular in his set.
 
 4 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 He was a clever artist, and wrought hard and 
 well at his profession, although he had a rich 
 father. His position in society was assured, his 
 physique fine, and education excellent advan- 
 tages fully appreciated by most of the men, and 
 all the women he knew. If he recognized their 
 value he was an adroit dissembler. Simple and 
 frank in manner, he met his world with out- 
 stretched hand. When the hand was not taken 
 he laughed in good-humored astonishment, went 
 about his business, and forgot the churl. His 
 schoolmates used to say that it did not pay to 
 quarrel with him; his parents, that he and his 
 sister May should exchange names. That his 
 amiability was not the result of a phlegmatic 
 temperament was apparent in the quick bright- 
 ness of the eyes that roved about the dining 
 room, leaving out nothing from the lunch 
 counter in the adjoining room, set with long 
 ranks of salvers with globular glass covers that 
 gave the array the expression of a chemist's 
 laboratory, to the whirligig fans that revolved 
 just below the ceiling with the dual mission of 
 cooling the atmosphere and chasing away flies. 
 Our returned traveler seemed to find these 
 harbingers of summer weather and summer pests 
 amusing. He was watching them when a voice 
 behind him accosted a hurrying waiter. 
 
 "There is a young girl over there who cannot 
 walk. Will you lift her out of her chair and
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SfSTER. 5 
 
 bring her in? It is just at the door, and she is 
 very light." 
 
 "Busy now, miss! Better ask somebody 
 else !" pushing past. 
 
 The baffled applicant stood in the middle of 
 the floor, irresolute, seeming the more solitary 
 and helpless because young and a woman. Thus 
 much, and not that she was comely and a lady, 
 March saw before he sprang to his feet and faced 
 her respectfully. 
 
 "I beg pardon! but can I be of use? It will 
 give me pleasure if you will allow me." Catching 
 sight in the doorway of the one in whose behalf 
 she had spoken, an arch smile respectful still 
 lighted up his honest countenance. "If you will 
 let me make amends for my awkwardness of a 
 while ago !" 
 
 He was a society man, and might have been 
 aware how unconventional was the offer. He 
 palliated the solecism, in describing the incident at 
 home, by saying that he saw in every elderly 
 woman his mother, in a young one, his only 
 sister. 
 
 "Thank you ! if you will be so kind" accepting 
 the proposal as simply as it had been made. "I 
 could bring her in myself, but she does not like 
 to have me do it here." 
 
 "I should think not, indeed ! One of the best 
 uses to which a man's muscles can be put is to 
 help the weak," rejoined March heartily.
 
 6 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 A gleam crossed the unchildish visage of the 
 cripple when he stooped to lift her. She recog- 
 nized him, but offered no verbal remark then, or 
 when he deposited the light burden in the chair 
 set for her by a waiter more humane, or less 
 driven than his testy comrade. 
 
 "You are very good, and we are much obliged 
 to you," the guardian said, with a little bow of 
 acknowledgment which he took as dismissal also, 
 withdrawing to his own place. 
 
 "Set the table for seven, please," he heard her 
 continue to the waiter, businesslike and quiet, 
 "and reserve another seat at that table" desig- 
 nating one remote from the larger "for a gentle- 
 man who will come in by and by. There is a 
 man, too, for whom I wish to order luncheon at 
 the counter in that room. He *can get a good 
 meal and be comfortable there, I suppose?" 
 
 "A traveling party of nine!" thought March, 
 apparently intent upon the depths of his soup 
 tureen. "With this girl as courier. Yet she 
 mentioned two men !" 
 
 The family filed in while he speculated. Twin 
 boys of twelve or thirteen, dressed exactly alike 
 in gray jackets and knickerbcokers, except that 
 the red-haired one wore a blue necktie and the 
 brown-haired a scarlet ; a pretty, blue-eyed girl of 
 eight, and a toddler of two, led by a sweet-faced 
 mother, with fair hair and faintly tinted com- 
 plexion, of the china shepherdess school. The
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. ^ 
 
 "courier," assisted by the waiter, seated them all 
 without bustle, before addressing an individual 
 who had followed at a respectful distance and 
 now hung aloof, chewing the brim of a brand-new 
 straw hat. 
 
 "Homer!" said the young lady gently and dis- 
 tinctly, as she might direct a child, "you will get 
 your dinner in the next room. Come!" 
 
 By shifting his position slightly, March could 
 see her point the man to a stool and give orders 
 for his refreshment. He was undersized, lean, 
 and sandy haired, small of feature and loutish in 
 carriage. His eyes had red rims, and blinked 
 incessantly, as if excessively weak or purblind. 
 When he began operations upon coffee and sand- 
 wiches, he gobbled voraciously, gnawing off 
 mouthfuls like a greedy dog. His clothes were so 
 distressingly ready-made, and accentuated hisun- 
 couthness so unmercifully, as to leave no doubt 
 that the wearing of coat and vest was a novelty 
 and an equivocal boon. 
 
 "An odd fish !" commented March mentally. 
 "Why should a civilized family haul him after 
 them like a badly made kite tail? And they are 
 not vulgarians, either!" 
 
 His eyes strayed discreetly back to the table 
 set for seven. The mistress of ceremonies sat at 
 the head, and was studying the printed menu. It 
 lay flat on the cloth that the crippled girl at her 
 right might read it with her. Their heads were
 
 8 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 close together, and the gravity upon the counte- 
 nance of the elder was reflected by the shrewd 
 elfin face. Presently they began to whisper, the 
 bare, thin finger of the younger of the two trac- 
 ing the lines to the extreme right of the carte. 
 It was plainly a question of comparative expense, 
 March perceived with a pang of his kind heart. 
 For he had been a boy himself, and the children 
 were hungry. 
 
 "Hurry up won't you, Hetty," called the red- 
 headed twin impatiently. "Give us the first 
 thing you come to so long as it isn't corned beef, 
 pork and beans, or rice pudding. I'm starved ! " 
 
 "Me, too!" echoed his fellow. 
 
 "You needn't make mincemeat of your English 
 on that account !" piped the crippled sister tartly. 
 "It is no little matter to order just the right 
 things for such a host. Mamma, you must have 
 a cup of tea, I suppose?" 
 
 The young lady interposed, writing while she 
 talked : 
 
 "Of course! And all of us will be the better 
 for some good, hot soup. This is luncheon, not 
 dinner, recollect. We only need something to 
 stay our appetites until six o'clock," she added, 
 putting the paper in the waiter's hand. 
 
 She did not look like one who did things for 
 effect, yet there was meaning in her manner of 
 saying it. If she was obliged to cut her coat 
 according to her cloth, she would just now make
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 9 
 
 the scantiness of the pattern seem a matter of 
 choice and carry out the seeming gallantly. 
 
 "How much further have we to go?" queried 
 eight-year-old, somewhat ruefully. 
 
 Six o'clock was to her apprehension a long time 
 ahead. 
 
 "We are within half an hour of home. We 
 might have been there by now, but we thought it 
 better to wait over a train to rest and get rid of 
 the dust we brought off the cars." 
 
 "And to let him get shaved and barbered and 
 prinked up generally !" shrilled the cripple malevo- 
 lently. 
 
 "Hester!" The mother's voice was heard for 
 the first time. 
 
 "Well, mamma?" 
 
 "That is not respectful, my love. You are 
 tired, I am afraid." 
 
 The shrewd face jerked fretfully, and the lips 
 were opened for a retort, checked by a gloved 
 hand laid upon the forward child's. There was 
 only a murmur, accompanied by a pettish shrug. 
 
 March was ashamed of the impulse that made 
 him steal a look at the tray bearing the result of 
 the whispered consultation. Three tureens, each 
 containing two generous portions of excellent 
 English gravy soup with barley in it, a pot of 
 tea, bread and milk for the baby and plenty of 
 bread and butter were duly deposited upon the 
 board.
 
 10 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SSS7'EX. 
 
 "I'll take the rest of your order now," said the 
 waiter, civilly suggestive. 
 
 "This is all. Thank you !" in a matter-of-course 
 tone that was not resentfully positive. 
 
 The "courier" understood herself, and having 
 taken ground, how to hold it. This was lunch- 
 eon. March caught himself speculating as to the 
 dinner bill of fare. 
 
 The spokeswoman may have been two-and- 
 twenty. She was slightly above the middle 
 height of healthy womanhood, had gray, serious 
 eyes, with brown shadows in them when the lids 
 drooped; well-formed lips that curled roguishly 
 at the corners in smiling ; a straight nose with 
 mobile nostrils, and a firm chin. There was char- 
 acter in plenty in the face. Such free air and 
 sunshine as falls into most girls' lives might have 
 made it beautiful. The pose of her head, the 
 habitual gravity of eyes and mouth, the very car- 
 riage of the shoulders and her gait testified to the 
 untimely sense of responsibility borne by this 
 one. She was slight and straight ; her gown of 
 fawn-colored cloth fitted well, and a toque of the 
 same material with no trimming, except a knot of 
 velvet ribbon, was becoming; yet March, who de- 
 signed his sister's costumes, was quite certain that 
 gown and hat were homemade and the product of 
 the wearer's skill. Both women were unmistakably 
 gentle in breeding, and the children's chatter, al- 
 though sometimes pert, was not rude or boisterous.
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTEX. I r 
 
 A man entered by the side door while the chat- 
 ter was stilling under the supreme attraction of 
 the savory luncheon, and, after a word to a waiter, 
 took the chair which had been tilted, face down- 
 ward, against the far table at the "courier's" 
 order. He was tall, and had an aquiline, intel- 
 lectual cast of countenance. His hands the 
 artist had an appreciative eye for hands and fin- 
 gers were a student's ; his linen was irreproacha- 
 ble; his chin and cheeks were blue-shaven, and 
 his black hair was cut straight across at the back, 
 just clearing the collar of his coat, instead of 
 being shingled. 
 
 "A clergyman!" deduced Crilchrist, from the 
 latter peculiarity. "That not the white choker 
 is the trade-mark of the profession. Did barber 
 or preacher establish the fashion?" 
 
 After inspection of the menu, the newcomer 
 ordered a repast which was sumptuous when com- 
 pared with the frugal one course of the seven 
 seated at the table in the middle of the room. 
 He took no notice of them nor they of him. His 
 mien was studiously abstracted. While waiting 
 for his food he drew a small blotting pad from his 
 pocket and wrote upon it with a stylographic pen, 
 his profile keener as his work went on. In paus- 
 ing to collect thoughts or choose words the incli- 
 nation of his eyes was upward. After his entrance 
 profound silence settled upon the central table. 
 Not even the baby prattled. This singular taci-
 
 12 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SfSTER. 
 
 turnity took on significance to the alert wits of 
 the unsuspected observer when he saw a swift 
 interchange of looks between the cripple and her 
 left-hand neighbor, attended by a grimace of such 
 bitter disdain directed by the junior of the pair 
 at the student as fairly startled the artist. 
 
 The unconscious object of the shaft put up 
 paper and pen, and addressed himself with deliber- 
 ate dignity, upon the arrival of his raw oysters, to 
 the lower task of filling the material part of him. 
 He was discussing a juicy square of porterhouse 
 steak, as March bowed respectfully on his way 
 out to the girl at the head of the board, a smile 
 in his pleasant eyes being especially intended for 
 the dwarfed cripple beside her. 
 
 Homer had bolted the last fragment of a huge 
 segment of custard pie, washed down the crust 
 with a second jorum of coffee, and sat, satiate 
 and sheepish, upon the tall stool, awaiting orders. 
 
 "The most extraordinary combinery, taken in 
 all its parts, it was ever my luck to behold," de- 
 clared March Gilchrist at his father's dinner table 
 that evening. "Intensely American throughout, 
 though. I wish I knew whether or not the man 
 who appropriated the reserved seat was a usurper. 
 If he were, that spirited little economist of a 
 courier was quite capable of dispossessing him, or, 
 at least, of calling the waiter to account for neg- 
 lect of duty. And what relation did blind Homer 
 bear to the party?"
 
 MK. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 13 
 
 "Dear old March !" said his sister affectionately. 
 "Story weaving in the old fashion ! How 
 natural it sounds! What jolly times you and I 
 have had over our amateur romances and make 
 believes! Which reminds me of a remarkable 
 sermon preached Sunday before last by our new 
 pastor. (I told you we had one, didn't I?) The 
 text was: 'Six waterpots of stone, containing two 
 or three firkins apiece !' " 
 
 "Absurd !" 
 
 "True; but listen! The text was only a hook 
 from which he hung an eloquent discourse upon 
 the power of faith to make wine 'old and mel- 
 low and flavorous,' he called it out of what to 
 grosser souls seems insipid water. It was a plea 
 for the pleasures of imagination alias faith and 
 elevated our favorite amusement into a fine art, 
 and the fine art into religion. I came home feel- 
 ing like a spiritual chameleon, fully convinced that 
 rarefied air is the rightful sustenance of an immor- 
 tal being. According to our Mr. Wayt, what you 
 haven't got is the only Ihing you ought to be sure 
 of. Life is a sort of 'Now you see it and now 
 you don't see it' business throughout. Only, 
 when you don't see it you are richer and happier 
 than when you do. Did you ever think to hear 
 me babble metaphysics? Now, where are those 
 portfolios?" 
 
 "Make believe that you have overhauled them, 
 and be blest," retorted her brother. "There's a
 
 14 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SfSTER. 
 
 chance to practice your metaphysical cant with 
 a new, deep meaning in it, too, which you will 
 detect when you inspect my daubs. I did some 
 fairish things in Norway, however, which may 
 prove that your rule has an exception." 
 
 The Gilchrists freely acknowledged themselves 
 to be what the son and daughter styled "a mutual 
 admiration square." March's portfolios were not 
 the only engrossing subject that drew them to- 
 gether in the library, where coffee and cigars were 
 served. 
 
 May and her father turned over sketches and 
 examined finished pictures at the table, passing 
 them afterward to the mother, who was a fixture 
 in her easy-chair by reason- of a head, covered 
 with crisp chestnut curls, lying upon her lap. 
 May was her companion and co-laborer, dutiful 
 and beloved, despite the impetuosity of mood 
 and temper which seemed inharmonious with the 
 calmer nature of the matron. The mother's idol 
 was the long-limbed fellow who, stretched upon 
 the tiger-skin rug, one awn cast about her waist, 
 submitted to her mute fondling with grace as 
 cheerful as that with which she endured the scent 
 of the cigar she would not let him resign when he 
 threw himself into his accustomed place. She 
 was a good wife, but she never pretended to like 
 the odor of the judge's best weed. March's 
 cigars, she confessed, were "really delightful." 
 Perhaps she recognized in his affluent, joyous
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 15 
 
 nature something hers lacked and had craved 
 all her life ; the golden side of the iron shield. 
 Assuredly, her children drew the ideality in which 
 they reveled from the father. 
 
 The tall, dignified woman who queened it in 
 the best circles of Fairhill society, and was the 
 chiefest pillar in the parish which had just called 
 Mr. Wayt to become its spiritual head, was the 
 embodiment of what is known as hard sense. 
 Mind and character were laid out and down in 
 straight lines. Right was right ; duty was duty, 
 and not to be shirked. Wrong was wrong, and 
 the shading off of sin into foible was of the devil. 
 She believed in a personal devil, comprehended 
 the doctrines of the Trinity, of election and repro- 
 bation, and the resurrection of the physical body. 
 Twice each Sabbath, once during the week, she 
 repaired to the courts of the Lord with joys un- 
 known to worldly souls. The ministry she held 
 in the old-fashioned veneration we have cast be- 
 hind us with many worse and a few better things. 
 Others might and did criticise the men who wore 
 white nectkies upon weekdays and had their hair 
 cut straight behind. The hands of the presbytery 
 had been laid in ordination upon them. That 
 was a sacred shield to her. In spirit she ap- 
 proached the awful circle of the church with 
 bared feet and bent brow. Within it was her 
 home. To her church her toils were literally 
 given. For it her prayers continually ascended.
 
 1 6 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 She had looked grave during May's flippant 
 abstract of the new preacher's discourse anent the 
 six stone waterpots. Her family might suspect 
 that she could not easily assimilate spiritual bread 
 so unlike that broken to his flock by a good man 
 who had been gathered to his fathers six months 
 before, after a pastorate of thirty years in Fair- 
 hill. Nobody could elicit a hint to this effect 
 from her lips. Mr. Wayt was the choice of a 
 respectable majority of church and parish. The 
 presbytery had accepted his credentials and sol- 
 emnly installed him in his new place. Hence- 
 forward he was her pastor, and as such above 
 the touch of censure. He had been the guest of 
 the Gilchrists for a week prior to the removal of 
 his family to the flourishing suburban town, and 
 received such entertainment for body and spirit 
 as strengthened his belief in the Divine authority 
 of the call he had answered. 
 
 He left Fairhill four days before March landed 
 in New York, to meet his wife and children in 
 Syracuse and escort them to their new abiding 
 place. During these days the mothers and daugh- 
 ters of the household of faith had worked dili- 
 gently to prepare the parsonage for the reception 
 of the travelers, Mrs. Gilchrist being the guiding 
 spirit. And while she drew the shining silk of 
 her boy's curls through fingers that looked strong, 
 yet touched tenderly, the Rev. Percy Wayt, 
 A. M. and M. A., with feet directed by gratitude
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. I? 
 
 and heart swollen with pastoral affection, was near- 
 ing the domicile of his best "member." 
 
 A long French window upon the piazza framed 
 the tableau he halted to survey, his foot upon the 
 upper step of the broad flight leading from the 
 lawn. It was a noble room, planned by March 
 and built with his proud father's money. Breast- 
 high shelves filled with choice books lined the 
 wall ; above them were a few fine pictures. 
 Oriental rugs were strewed upon the polished 
 floor; lounging and upright chairs stood about in 
 social attitudes. The light of the shaded read- 
 ing lamp shone silvery upon Judge Gilchrist's 
 head and heightened the brightness of May's 
 face. March's happy gaze, upturned to meet his 
 mother's look of full content, might have meant 
 as much in a cottage as here, but they seemed to 
 the spectator accessories of the luxurious well- 
 being which stamped the environment. 
 
 He sighed deeply perhaps at the contrast the 
 scene offered to the half furnished abode he had 
 just left perhaps under the weight of memories 
 aroused by the family group. He was as capable 
 of appreciating beauty and enjoying ease as were 
 those who took these as an installment of the 
 debt the world owed them. The will of the holy 
 man who preaches the great gain of godliness 
 when wedded to contentment, ought to be one 
 with that of the Judge of all the earth. Some- 
 times it is. Sometimes
 
 1 8 MX. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEX. 
 
 "Ah, Mr. Wayt !" Judge Gilchrist's proverb- 
 ially gracious manner was never more urbane 
 than as he offered a welcoming hand to his wife's 
 spiritual director. "You find us in the full flood 
 of rejoicing over our returned prodigal," he con- 
 tinued, when the visitor had saluted the ladies. 
 "Let me introduce my son." 
 
 Mr. Wayt was "honored and happy at being 
 allowed to participate in the reunion," yet apolo- 
 getic for his "intrusion upon that with which 
 strangers should not intermeddle." 
 
 While saying it he squeezed March's hand in 
 a grasp more nervous than firm, and looked ad- 
 miringly into the sunny eyes. 
 
 "Your mother's son will forgive the interrup- 
 tion when he learns why I am here," he went on, 
 tightening and relaxing his hold at alternate 
 periods. "I brought my wife and babies home to- 
 day. I use the word advisedly. I left a desolate, 
 empty house. Merely walls, ceilings, doors, win- 
 dows, and floors. A shell without sentiment. A 
 chrysalis without the germ of life-. This was on 
 last Monday morning." 
 
 By now the brief sentences had come to imply 
 depth of emotion with which March was unable 
 to sympathize, and he felt convicted of inhumanity 
 that this was so. 
 
 "I advised Mrs. Wayt of what she would find. 
 Hers is a brave spirit encased in a fragile frame, 
 and she was not daunted. You, madam," letting
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 19 
 
 go the son's hand and facing the mother, "know, 
 and we can never forget what we found when, 
 weary and faint and travel-stained, we alighted 
 this afternoon at the parsonage gate." 
 
 With all her native aplomb and half-century of 
 world knowledge Mrs. Gilchrist blushed, much to 
 the covert amusement of husband and son. If 
 the judge had manner Mr. Wayt had deport- 
 ment, and with it fluency. His weighty words 
 pressed her hard for breath. 
 
 "Please don't speak of it!" she hastened to 
 implore. " We did very little and I no more 
 than others." 
 
 "Allow me !" Gesture and tone were rhetorical. 
 "You or others under your command laid car- 
 pets and set our humble plenishing in order. 
 There is not much of it, but such as it is, it has 
 followed our varied fortunes so long that it is 
 endeared by association. You arranged it to the 
 best advantage. You stocked larders and made 
 up beds, and kindled the fire upon the household 
 altar, typified by the kitchen range, and spread a 
 toothsome feast for our refreshment. You and 
 your sister angels. If this be not true, then 
 benevolent pixies have been at work, for, although 
 we found the premises swept and garnished, not 
 a creature was to be seen. Generosity and tact 
 had met together; beneficence and modesty had 
 kissed each other. I assure you, Mr. Gilchrist" 
 wheeling back in good order upon March "that in
 
 20 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 seventeen years of the vicissitudes of a pastoral life 
 that has had its high lights and depressing shades, 
 such delicacy of kindness is without a parallel." 
 
 "Let me express my sympathy in the shape of 
 a cigar," said March, taking one from the table. 
 "I brought over a lot, which my father, who is a 
 connoisseur in tobacco, pronounces fit to smoke. 
 Should you agree with him, I shall esteem it a 
 compliment if you will let me send a box to the 
 parsonage to-morrow." 
 
 Mr. Wayt's was an opaque and not a healthy 
 complexion. It was mottled now with a curious, 
 dull glow; the muscles of his mouth twitched. 
 He waved aside the offering with more energy 
 than courtesy. 
 
 "You are good, sir very good! But I never 
 smoke! My nervous system is idiosyncratic. 
 Common prudence inhibits the use on my part of 
 all narcotics and stimulants, if principle did not. 
 To be frank" inclusively to all present "I am 
 what is known as 'a temperance crank.' You 
 may think the less of me for the confession ; in 
 point of fact, I lost one charge in direct conse- 
 quence of my peculiar views upon this subject ; 
 but if I speak at all, I must be candid. Believe 
 me nevertheless, Mr. Gilchrist, your grateful 
 debtor for the proffered gift. If you will now 
 and then let a kindly thought of me mingle with 
 the smoke of your burnt offering, the favor will 
 be still greater."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 21 
 
 "May I trouble you to say to Mrs. VVayt that 
 the cook you asked me to engage for her cannot 
 come until next Monday morning?" said the 
 practical hostess. Mr. Wayt's sonorous periods 
 always impelled her to monosyllabic common- 
 places. "Perhaps she cannot wait so long?" 
 
 "I take the responsibility of promising for her, 
 madam, that she will. Apart from the fact that 
 her desire to secure a servant recommended by 
 yourself would- reconcile her to a still longer 
 delay, her household, as at present composed, has 
 in itself the elements of independence. We have 
 a faithful, if eccentric, servitor, who has an abnor- 
 mal passion for work in all its varieties. He is 
 gardener, house servant, cook, groom, mason and 
 builder, as need requires. He mends his own 
 clothes, cobbles his shoes and I am not without 
 a suspicion of his proficiency as a laundryman." 
 
 He rendered the catalogue with relish for the 
 humor of the situation. The exigencies of par- 
 sonage life which had developed the talents of his 
 trusty retainer seemed to have no pathos for the 
 master. 
 
 "Where did you find this treasure? And is he 
 a Unique?" asked May laughingly. 
 
 "I believe the credit of raking the protoplasmic 
 germ out of the slums of Chicago, where we were 
 then sojourning, belongs to my wife's sister, Miss 
 Ailing. The atmosphere of our home has warmed 
 into growth latent possibilities, I fancy. It was
 
 22 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S STSTER. 
 
 a white day for poor Tony when the gutter-wash 
 landed him at our door. Even now he has physi- 
 cal weaknesses and mental deficiencies that make 
 him a striking object-lesson as to the terrible 
 truths of heredity." 
 
 "How many children have you, Mr. Wayt?" 
 questioned March, with irrelevance verging upon 
 abruptness. 
 
 "George W. Cable's number five. You may 
 recall the witty puzzle he set for a Massachusetts 
 Sunday School. 'I have five children,' he said, 
 'and half of them are girls. What is the half of 
 five?' 'Two and a half/ came from the perplexed 
 listeners. It transpired, eventually, that the 
 other half were girls also." 
 
 He was an entertaining man, or would have 
 been had he been colloquial instead of hortatory. 
 Yet what he said was telling rather from the 
 degree of importance he evidently attached to it 
 than from the worth of the matter. In a smaller 
 speaker, his style would have been airy. Stand- 
 ing, as he did, six feet in his slippers, he was 
 always nearly occasionally, quite imposing. 
 Men of his profession seldom converse well. The 
 habit of hebdomadal speech-making runs over and 
 saturates the six working days. Pastoral visita- 
 tion is undoubtedly measurably responsible for 
 the trick of talking as for duty's sake, and to 
 a roomful. The essential need of the public 
 speaker is audience, and to this, actual or vision-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SfSTEK. 23 
 
 ary, he is prone to address himself. Mr. Wayt 
 could not bid an acquaintance "Good-morning," 
 in a chance encounter upon boat or car, without 
 embracing every passenger within the scope of 
 his orotund tones, in the salutation. A poseur 
 during his waking hours, he probably continued 
 to cater to the ubiquitous audience in his dreams. 
 
 "Come out for a turn on the piazza, May !" pro- 
 posed March, after the guest had taken his leave. 
 
 The night was filled with divine calm. The 
 Gilchrist house surmounted a knoll from which 
 the beautiful town rolled away on all sides. In 
 the distance a glistening line showed where the 
 bay divided Jersey meadows from the ramparts of 
 the Highlands. The turf of the lawn was ringed 
 and crossed by beds of hyacinths and tulips. 
 The buds of the great horse-chestnut trees were 
 big with promise; the finer tracery of the elms 
 against the moonlit sky showed tufts of tender 
 foliage. Faint, delicious breaths of sweetness 
 met brother and sister at the upper end of their 
 walk, telling that the fruit trees were ablow. 
 
 "East or West, Hame is Best ! " 
 
 quoted March, taking in a mighty draught of 
 satisfaction. "Not that I brought you out here 
 to listen to stale Scotch rhymes. Don't annoy the 
 precious mother by letting her into the secret, 
 May, but Mr. Wayt is the man I saw in the rest- 
 aurant to-day, and I believe that was his family!"
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE almost unearthly stillness of the fragrant 
 May night was, as often happens at that lovely, 
 uncertain season, the precursor of a rainy day. 
 
 Hetty Ailing, awakening at four o'clock to plan 
 for the work that lay before the transplanted 
 household, heard the first drops fall upon the 
 tin roof of the piazza under her window like the 
 patter of tiny, stealthy feet scaling the eaves and 
 combing, then advancing boldly in rank and rush 
 until the beat was the reverberant roar of a spring 
 flood. 
 
 It awoke nobody else under the parsonage roof- 
 tree. Hester slept soundly beside her. She 
 never slept quietly. In addition to the spinal dis- 
 ease which warped the poor girl's figure she suf- 
 fered from an affection of the throat that made 
 her respiration in slumber a rattling snore, inter- 
 rupted at regular intervals by a gurgle that 
 sounded like strangulation. So audibly distress- 
 ing was it that her father could not sleep within 
 two rooms of her, and the healthy occupants of 
 the intervening nursery complained that "nothing 
 was done to break Hester of making such a 
 racket. If she wanted to stop it she could."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 25 
 
 Her young aunt and roommate knew better. 
 Hester had shared her bed for almost nine years. 
 Mrs. Wayt's orphaned sister was but fourteen 
 when she came to live in the parsonage, then 
 situated in Cincinnati. It had been a hard winter 
 with the pastor's wife. While her mother lay 
 dying in Ithaca, N. Y., her then only daughter, the 
 first born of her flock, a beautiful, vivacious child 
 of eight, met with the accident which crippled 
 and dwarfed her for life. The telegram announc- 
 ing Mrs. Alling's illness was answered- by one 
 saying that Hester was at the point of death. 
 She had just passed the first doubtful stage upon 
 the return journey lifeward, when Hetty, in her 
 new black frock, insisted upon relieving the grief- 
 worn watcher over the wreck that could never be 
 put together again. 
 
 Lying in strange quarters in a strange town at 
 the dreariest hour of the twenty-four, Hetty re- 
 called that as the date when the load of care, now 
 an integral part of herself, was first fastened upon 
 her. She had before this likened it to a needle 
 she had once, in childish wantonness, run under 
 the bark of a young willow, and seen disappear 
 gradually from view as the riven bark grew over 
 it, until, at the end of a year, no vestige of the 
 steel remained, except a ridge which was never 
 smoothed away. She was not exactly penniless. 
 The portion left her by her mother was judiciously 
 invested by her guardian, and yielded her exactly
 
 2 6 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SJSTEK. 
 
 four hundred dollars a year. It was transmitted 
 promptly, quarterly, until she was of age, by 
 which time she was so rooted and grounded in 
 prudence that she continued to draw the like 
 amount at equal periods. 
 
 "It is enough to dress her," Mrs. Wayt had 
 said to her husband, in seeking his sanction to 
 her offer of a home to one who stood alone in the 
 world save for her sister, and an uncle who had 
 lived in Japan for twenty years. "And she is 
 welcome to her board is she not, Percy, dear?" 
 
 "Welcome, dear love? Can you ask the ques- 
 tion with regard to your only sister poor 
 motherless lamb! While we have a roof between 
 us and the sky and a crust of bread between us 
 and starvation, she shall share both. Let me 
 write the letter !" 
 
 The epistle was almost tattered with many 
 readings when Hetty became an inmate of her 
 brother-in-law's home. She had not kept it until 
 now. That was not strange, Fairhill being the 
 latest in a succession of "settlements" to which 
 the brilliant gospeler had accepted calls, generally 
 unanimous and almost invariably enthusiastic. 
 There were three children at Hetty's coming 
 her own and her mother's namesake, Hester, and 
 Percy and Perry, the twin boys. Four had been 
 born since, but two had not outlived early infancy. 
 Mr. Wayt would not have been a preacher of the 
 period had he not enriched some of his most
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 27 
 
 effective discourses with illustrations drawn from 
 these personal bereavements. 
 
 His celebrated apostrophe to a six-months old 
 daughter, beginning "Dear little Susie! She 
 had numbered but a brief half year of mortal life, 
 but she was loving and beloved ! I seem to feel 
 the soft strain of her arms about my neck this 
 moment" is too familiar to my readers, through 
 newspaper reports, to need repetition here. The 
 sermon embodying this gem of poetic and rhetori- 
 cal emotion is known to have won him calls to 
 three churches. 
 
 It was still dark when Hetty's ear caught the 
 muffled thud of feet upon the garret stairs. 
 Wherever providence and parish preferences cast 
 the lot of the Wayts, Homer's bedroom was 
 nearest the heavens that were hot by summer and 
 cold by winter. 
 
 "I don't set no store by ceilin's," he told Hetty 
 when she "wished they could lodge him better." 
 "Seems if 'twas naturaler fur to see the beams 
 purty nigh onto my nose when I fus' wake in the 
 mornin'. I'm kind o' lonesome fur 'em when I 
 caan't butt me head agin the top o' me room 
 when I'm a mind ter." 
 
 At another time he confided to her that it was 
 "reel sociabul-like to hear the rain onto the ruff, 
 clus' to a feller's ears o' nights." 
 
 He was on his way down to the kitchen now to 
 light the fire. Unless she should interfere, he
 
 28 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 would cook breakfast, and serve it upon the table 
 she had set overnight, and sweep down the stairs 
 and scrub the front doorsteps while the family 
 ate the morning meal. He called himself "Tony," 
 as did all the family except Hetty and Mrs. 
 Wayt. The former had found "Homer Smith, 
 Jr.," written in a sprawling hand upon the flyleaf 
 of a songbook which formed the waif's entire 
 library. Hetty had notions native to her own 
 small head. One was that the but for her 
 friendless lad would respect himself the more if 
 he were not addressed by what she called "a cir- 
 cus monkey's name." For this reason he was 
 "Homer" to her, and her sister followed her 
 example because she considered the factotum 
 and whatever related to him Hetty's affair, and 
 that she had a right to designate her chattel by 
 whatever title she pleased. 
 
 Tony had come to the basement door one 
 snowy, blowy day of a particularly cruel winter, 
 when Hetty was maid of all work. He stood 
 knee-deep in a drift when she opened the grated 
 door and asked, hoarsely but without a touch of 
 the beggar's whine, for "a job to keep him from 
 starvin'." He was, as he "guessed," twenty 
 years of age, emaciated from a spell of "new- 
 money," and so nearly blind that the suggestion 
 of a "job" was pitiably preposterous. Hetty took 
 him into her neat kitchen, made him a cup of tea, 
 and cut and plied him with bread and butter until
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 29 
 
 he asserted that he was "right-up-an'-down chirpy, 
 jes' as strong's enny man. Couldn't he rake out 
 the furnace, or saw wood, or clear off the snow, 
 or clean shoes, or scrub the stairs, or mend broken 
 things, or wash windows, or peel pertaters, or 
 black stoves, or sif ashes, or red-up the cellar 
 or or somethin', to pay for his dinner? I aint 
 no beggar, ma'am nor never will be !" 
 
 Hetty hired him as a "general utility man," at 
 ten cents a forenoon and his breakfast, for a 
 week then, for a month. He lodged wherever 
 he could in stable lofts, at the police station, 
 under porches on mild nights, and when other 
 resorts were closed, in a midnight refuge, and 
 never touched liquor or tobacco in any form. 
 At the month's end, his girlish patroness cleared 
 a corner of the attic between the sharp angle and 
 the chimney, set up a cot, and allowed him to 
 sleep there. Mr. Wayt had no suspicion of the 
 disreputable incumbent of the habitation honored 
 by his name and residence, until one memorable 
 and terrible March midnight when a doctor must 
 be had without the delay of an instant revealed 
 the secret, but under circumstances that strength- 
 ened the retainer's hold upon his employers. 
 Since then, he had been part and parcel of the 
 establishment, proving himself as proficient in 
 removals and settlings-down as in other branches 
 of his business. 
 
 Mr. Wayt liked to allude to him as "Hetty's
 
 3 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 Freak." At other times he nicknamed him 
 "Kasper Hauser." Once, and once only, in refer- 
 ence to Hetty's influence over the being he chose 
 to regard as half-witted, he spoke of him as "a 
 masculine Undine," whereupon his sister-in-law 
 turned upon him a look that surprised him and 
 horrified his wife, and marched out of the room. 
 
 Mrs. Wayt followed her presently and found 
 her gazing out of the window of the closet to 
 which she had fled, with livid face and dry eyes 
 that were dangerously bright. 
 
 "Percy hopes you were not hurt by his harm- 
 less little jest," said the gentle wife. "You 
 know, Hetty, it would kill me if you and he were 
 to quarrel. He has the kindest heart in the 
 world, and respects you too sincerely to offend 
 you knowingly. You must not mind what 
 sounds like extravagant speech. We cannot 
 judge men of genius as we would ordinary people. 
 And, dear, for my sake be patient !" 
 
 The girl yielded to the weeping embrace of the 
 woman whose face was hidden upon her shoulder. 
 
 "Mr. Wayt" she never gave him a more 
 familiar title "cannot hurt me except through 
 you, Fanny. You and he must know that by 
 now. I will try to keep my temper better in 
 hand in future." 
 
 Hetty was young and energetic, and used to 
 hard work. She had put the children to bed early 
 on the evening of their arrival in Fairhill ; sent
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 31 
 
 her sister, who had a sick headache, to her cham- 
 ber before Mr. Wayt returned from the Gil- 
 christs'; given Hester's aching limbs a hot bath 
 and a good rubbing, and only allowed Homer to 
 help her unpack boxes until half-past ten, not 
 retiring herself until midnight. The carload of 
 furniture, which had preceded the family and 
 been put in place by the neighborly parishioners, 
 looked scantily forlorn in the roomy manse. The 
 Ladies' Aid Association had asked the privilege 
 of carpeting the parlors, dining room, stairs, and 
 halls, and Judge Gilchrist, instigated by his wife, 
 headed a subscription that fitted up the pastor's 
 study handsomely. The sight of this apartment 
 had more to do with Hetty's short speech last 
 night and her down-heartedness this morning 
 than the newness of quarters and the knowledge 
 of the nearly spent "housekeeping purse." 
 
 "The people will expect us to live up to that 
 study !" she divined shrewdly, staring into the 
 blackness that began to show two gray lights 
 where windows would shape themselves by and 
 by. "And we cannot do it strain and save and 
 turn and twist as we may. We are always cut 
 out on a scant pattern, and not a button meets 
 without starting a seam. How sick and tired 
 I am of it all! How tired I am of everything/ 
 What if I were to lie stiH as other girls as real 
 young ladies do and sleep until I'm rested 
 out rested all through ! I should enjoy nestling
 
 32 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 down among the pillows and pulling the covers 
 about my head, and listening to the rain, as much 
 as the laziest butterfly of them all. What's the 
 use of trying to keep things on their feet any 
 longer when they must go down with a crash 
 sooner or later? 
 
 "I'm awfully sorry for Hetty Ailing!" This 
 was the summing up of the gloomy reverie. In 
 saying it inwardly, she raised herself to pinch 
 the pillow savagely and double it into a higher 
 prop for her restless head. "She is lonely and 
 homesick and hasn't a friend in the world. She 
 never can have an intimate friend for reasons she 
 knows so well she is sometimes ready to curse 
 God and die. 
 
 "There! Hester, dear! I only moved you a 
 little to make you lie easier. No! it is not time 
 to get up. Don't talk, dear, or you'll wake your- 
 self up." 
 
 She was never cross with- the afflicted child, 
 but in her present mood, the moan and gurgle of 
 her obstructed respiration went through her 
 brain like the scraping of a saw. The change of 
 position did not make the breathing more quiet, 
 and Hetty got up with the general out-of-tune- 
 ativeness best expressed by saying that "one's 
 teeth are all on edge." She dressed by candle- 
 light, to save gas, and groped her way down the 
 unfamiliar backstairs to the kitchen. 
 
 It was commodious and well-appointed, with
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 33 
 
 a pleasant outlook by daylight. In the dawn 
 that struggled in a low-spirited way through the 
 rifts in the rain and refused to blend with the 
 yellow blink of her candle and Homer's lantern, 
 no chamber could be less than dismal. 
 
 Homer was on his knees in front of the flicker- 
 ing fire, at which he stared as if doggedly deter- 
 mined to put it out of countenance. 
 
 "Now" his way of beginning nine out of every 
 ten sentences "this ere's a new pattern of a range 
 to me, an' it's tuk me some time fur ter git holt 
 on it. Most new things comes awk'ard to most 
 folks." 
 
 Hetty blew out her candle, and, dropping into 
 a chair in physical and mental languor, sat watch- 
 ing the grotesque figure clearing away ashes and 
 cinders. His wrestle with the new pattern had 
 begrimed his pale face and reddened his weak 
 eyes. His matutinal costume of a dim blue 
 flannel shirt, gray trousers, and a black silk skull 
 cap cast off by Mr. Wayt, pushed well back upon 
 the nape of the neck and revealing a scanty 
 uneven fringe of whitey-brown hair, did not 
 provoke the spectator to a smile. 
 
 "There is no bringing him up to the tone of 
 that study !" she meditated grimly. "'He and I 
 are hopeless drudges, but he is the happier of the 
 two. Homer ! I believe you really love to work !" 
 she broke forth finally. 
 
 Homer snickered a sudden spurt that left him
 
 34 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 very sober. His laugh always went out like a 
 damp match. 
 
 " Yes'm, cert'nly, ma'am ! Ef 'twant fur work, 
 there wouldn't be nuthin' to live fur!" 
 
 He shambled off to the cellar with the ashpan, 
 and in a few minutes, she could distinguish in the 
 sounds rumbling and smothering in the depths 
 beneath her feet the melancholy tune of his 
 favorite ditty : 
 
 " On the banks of the Omaha maha ! 
 
 'Twas there we settled many a night. 
 As happy as the little bird that sparkled on our block 
 On the banks of the Omaha! " 
 
 Hetty raised the window and leaned out, gasp- 
 ing for breath. A garden lay behind the house 
 and on one side of it. It was laid out in walks 
 and borders, and was rather broad than deep. 
 Beyond this were undefined clumps of trees that 
 looked like an orchard. Roofs and chimneys and 
 spires and lines of other trees, marking the course 
 of streets, were emerging from the soaking mists. 
 Five o'clock struck from a tower not far away, 
 and then a church bell began to ring gently a 
 persuasive call to early prayers. 
 
 The warm, sweet, wet air that aroused her to 
 look over the sill at a row of hyacinths in full 
 bloom, the slow peal of the bell, the hush of the 
 early morning, did not comfort her but the soft 
 moisture that filled her eyes drew heat and bit-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 35 
 
 terncss out of her heart. When she went up to 
 awaken Hester she carried a spray of hyacinth 
 bells, weighted with fragrant drops. Fine gems 
 of rain sprinkled her hair, her cheeks were cool 
 and damp, the scent of fresh earth and growing 
 things clung to her skirts. She laid the flowers 
 playfully against the heavy lids lifted peevishly 
 at her call. 
 
 '"There's richness for you,' " she quoted. "A 
 whole bed of them is awaiting your inspection 
 in the garden. And such lovely pansies some 
 as big as the palm of your hand. You and I and 
 Homer, who is wild with delight over them, will 
 claim the flowers as our especial charge and prop- 
 erty." 
 
 "Thank you for the classification!" snapped 
 Hester. "Yet we do belong to backyards as 
 naturally as cats and tomato cans. At least 
 Homer and I do. You'd climb the fence if you 
 could." 
 
 "With the other cats?" said Hetty lightly. 
 "See! I am putting the hyacinths in your own 
 little vase. I unpacked your china and books last 
 night. Not a thing was even nicked. You shall 
 arrange them in this jolly corner cupboard after 
 breakfast. It looks as if it were made a-puppose, 
 as Homer says. He has bumped his head against 
 strange doors and skinned his poor nose against 
 unexpected corners twenty times this morning. 
 He says : 'Now I s'pose it's the bran-new house
 
 36 MR. IV A YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 what <?;rcites me so. I allers gits 0,rcited in a 
 strange place.' " 
 
 The well-meant diversion was ineffectual. 
 
 "His excitement ought to be chronic, then! 
 Ugh ! that water is scalding hot !' shrinking from 
 the sponge in Hetty's hand. "For we've done 
 nothing but 'move on' ever since I can recollect. 
 I overheard mother say once, with a sort of remi- 
 niscent sigh, that our 'longest pastorate was in 
 Cincinnati.' We were there just four years. We 
 were six months in Chillicothe, and seven in 
 Ypsilanti. Then there was a year in Memphis, 
 and eighteen months in Natchez, and thirteen in 
 Davenport. The Little Rock church had a strong 
 constitution. We stayed there two years and 
 one week. It's my opinion that he is the Wan- 
 dering Jew, and we are one of the Lost 
 Tribes." 
 
 She smiled sour approbation of her sarcastic 
 sally, jerking her head backward to bring Hetty's 
 face within range of her vision. The deft fingers 
 were fastening strings and straps over the mis- 
 shapen shoulders. The visage was grave, but 
 always kind to her difficult charge. 
 
 "You think that is irreverent," Hester fretted, 
 wrinkling her forehead and beetling her eyebrows. 
 "It isn't a circumstance to what I am thinking all 
 the time. Some day I shall be left to myself and 
 my bosom devil long enough to spit it all out. 
 It's just bottling up, like the venom in Macbeth's
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 37 
 
 witches' toad that had sweltered so long under a 
 stone. But for you, crosspatch, all would have 
 been said and done long ago." 
 
 "You wouldn't make your mother unhappy if 
 you could help it," Hetty said cheerily. "And 
 it isn't flattering to her to compare her daughter 
 to a toad." 
 
 Hester was silent. As she sat in Hetty's lap, 
 it could be seen that she was not larger than a 
 puny child of seven or eight. The curved spine 
 bowed and heightened the thin shoulders; she 
 had never walked a step since the casualty that 
 nearly cost her her life. Only the face and hands 
 were uninjured. The latter were exquisitely 
 formed, the features were fine and clearly cut, and 
 susceptible to every change of emotion. That the 
 gentle reproof had not wrought peaceable fruits 
 was apparent from her expression. The misfit in 
 her organization was more painfully perceptible 
 to herself early in the day than afterward. She 
 seemed to have lost consciousness of her unlike- 
 ness to other people while asleep, and to be com- 
 pelled to readjust mental and physical conditions 
 every morning. Hetty dreaded the process, yet 
 was hardly aware of the full effect upon her own 
 spirits, or why she so often went down to break- 
 fast jaded and appetiteless. 
 
 "I often ask myself," resumed Hester, with slow 
 malignity, repulsive in one of her age and rela- 
 tion to those she condemned "if children ever
 
 38 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 really honor their parents. We won't waste 
 ammunition upon him but there is my mother. 
 She is a pattern of all angelic virtues, and a 
 woman of remarkable mental endowments. You 
 have told me again and again that she is the best 
 person you ever knew patient, heroic, loving, 
 loyal, and so on to the end of the string! You 
 tell over her perfections as a Papist tells her 
 beads. The law of kindness is in her mouth ; and 
 her children shall arise and call her blessed, and 
 she ought not to be afraid of the snow for her 
 household while her sister and her slave Tony are 
 to the fore. Don't try to stop me, or the toad 
 will spit at you ! I say that this, one would 
 think, impossible She, the modern rival of Solo- 
 mon's pious and prudish wise woman is weak 
 and unjust and " 
 
 Hetty interrupted the tirade by rising and lay- 
 ing the warped frame, all a-quiver with excite- 
 ment, upon the bed. 
 
 "You would better get your sleep out"' cover- 
 ing her up. "When you awake again you will 
 behave more like a reasonable creature. I can- 
 not stay here and listen to vulgar abuse of your 
 mother and my best friend." 
 
 She said it in firm composure, drew down the 
 shades, and without another glance at the con- 
 vulsed heap sobbing under the bedclothes, left 
 the chamber. Outside the door she paused as if 
 expecting to be recalled, but no summons came.
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTK. 39 
 
 She shook her head with a sad little smile and 
 passed down to the breakfast room. 
 
 Father, mother, and four children were at the 
 table. Mr. Wayt, in dressing jacket, slippers, and 
 silk skull cap, a cup of steaming chocolate at his 
 right hand, was engrossed in the morning paper. 
 A pair of scissors was beside his plate, that he 
 might clip out incident or statistics which might 
 be useful in the preparation of his wide-awake 
 sermons. He made no sign of recognition at the 
 entrance of his wife's sister; Mrs. Wayt smiled 
 affectionately and lifted her face for a good- 
 morning salute, indicating by an expressive ges- 
 ture her surprise and pleasure at having found 
 room and meal in such attractive order. Long 
 practice had made her an adept in pantomime. 
 The boys nodded over satisfactory mouthfuls; 
 pretty Fanny pulled her aunt down for a hug as 
 she passed ; even the baby made a mute rosebud 
 of her mouth and beckoned Hetty not to over- 
 look her. 
 
 Mr. Wayt's digestion was as idiosyncratic as 
 his nervous system. While the important unseen 
 apparatus carried on the business of assimilation, 
 the rest of the physical man was held in quiescent 
 subjugation. Agitation of molecular centers 
 might entail ruinous consequences. He reasoned 
 ably upon this point, citing learned authorities in 
 defense of the dogma that simultaneous func- 
 tionation such as animated speech or auricular
 
 4 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 attention and digestion is an impossibility, and 
 referring to the examples of dumb creatures to 
 prove that rest during and after eating is a natural 
 law. 
 
 He raised his eyes above the margin of his 
 newspaper at the clink of the chocolate pot 
 against the cup in Hetty's hand. The question- 
 ing gaze met a goodly sight. His wife's sister 
 wore a buff gingham, finished at throat and wrists 
 with white cambric ruffles, hemmed and gathered 
 by herself. Her dark brown hair was in perfect 
 order ; her sleeves were pushed back from strong, 
 shapely wrists. She always gave one the impres- 
 sion of clean-limbedness, elasticity, and neatness. 
 She was firm of flesh and of will. The prettier 
 woman at the head of the table was flaccid beside 
 her. The eyes of the younger were fearless in 
 meeting the master's scrutiny, those of his wife 
 were wistful, and clouded anxiously in passing 
 from one to the other. 
 
 "For Hester," said Hetty, in a low voice, look- 
 ing away from Mr. Wayt to her sister. "She is 
 tired, and will take her breakfast in bed." 
 
 "I remonstrate" Mr. Wayt's best audience 
 tones also addressed his wife "as I have repeat- 
 edly had occasion to do, against the practice of 
 pampering an invalid until her whims dominate 
 the household. Not that I have the least hope 
 that my protest will be heeded. But as the 
 child's father, I cannot, in conscience, withhold it."
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 41 
 
 Light scarlet flame, in which her features 
 seemed to waver, was blown across Hetty's face. 
 She set down the pot, poured back what she had 
 taken from it, and with a reassuring glance at her 
 sister's pleading eyes, went off to the kitchen. 
 There she hastened to find milk, chocolate, and 
 saucepan, and to prepare a foaming cup of Hes- 
 ter's favorite beverage; Homer, meanwhile, toast- 
 ing a slice of bread, delicately and quickly. 
 
 Hester's great eyes were raised to her aunt 
 from lids sodden with tears; her lips trembled 
 unmanageably in trying to frame her plea. 
 
 "Forgive me! please forgive me!" she sobbed. 
 "You know what my morning fiend is. And I 
 am not brave like you, or patient like mother!" 
 
 Hetty fondled the hot little hands. 
 
 "Let it pass, love. I was not angry, but some 
 subjects are best left untouched between us. 
 Here is your breakfast. Homer says that I 
 'make chawkerlette jes' the same's they did for 
 him in the horspittle when he had the new- 
 money.' They must have had a French c/iefand 
 a marvelous menu in that famous 'horspittle.' It 
 reminds me of Little Dorritt's Maggie and her 
 ' 'evenly chicken,' and 'so lovely an' 'ospittally !' " 
 
 She had the knack of picking up and making 
 the most of little things for the entertainment of 
 her hapless charge. Mrs. Wayt was much occu- 
 pied with the other children, to whom she devoted 
 all the time she could spare from her husband.
 
 42 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 It happened occasionally that he would eat no 
 bread she had not made, and oftener that his 
 craving was for certain entries she alone could 
 prepare to his liking. She brushed his coat and 
 hat, kept the run of missing papers and handker- 
 chiefs, tied his cravats, sat by him in a darkened 
 room when he took his afternoon siesta, wrote 
 letters from his dictation, and, when he was 
 weary, copied in a clear, clerkly hand or upon his 
 typewriter, sermons and addresses from the notes 
 he was wont to pencil in minute characters upon 
 a pocket pad. At least four nights out of seven 
 she arose in the dead of darkness to read aloud 
 to him for one, three, and four hours, when the 
 baleful curse, insomnia, claimed him as her prey. 
 His fad, at this date, was what Homer tickled 
 Hester into hysterics by calling "them horse- 
 phates." Horsford's acid phosphate, if the oracle 
 were to be believed, ought to be the vade mecnm 
 of ailing humanity. He carried a silver flask con- 
 taining it in his pocket everywhere ; dropped the 
 liquid furtively upon a lump of sugar, and ate it 
 in the pulpit, during anthem, or voluntary, or 
 offertory; mixed it with water and drank it on 
 the cars, in drugstores, in private houses, and at 
 his meals, and Mrs. Wayt kept spirit lamp 
 and kettle in her bedroom with which to heat 
 water for the tranquilizing and peptic draught at 
 cock -crowing or at midnight. If she had ever 
 complained of his exactions, or uttered an un-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEX. 43 
 
 gentle word to him, neither sister nor child had 
 heard her. She would have become his advocate 
 against himself had need arisen which it never 
 did. 
 
 "My ministering angel," he named her to the 
 Gilchrists, his keen eyes softened by ready dew. 
 "John Randolph said, in his old age, of his 
 mother: 'She was the only being who ever under- 
 stood me.' I can say the same of my other and 
 dearer self. She interprets my spirit intuitions 
 when they are but partially known to myself. 
 She meets my nature at every turn." 
 
 She met it to-day by mounting guard some- 
 times literally before the door of his study the 
 one room which was entirely in order while he 
 prepared his discourses for the ensuing Sabbath. 
 The rest found enough and more than enough to 
 do without the defended portal. Fanny was shut 
 up in the dining room with the baby Annie, and 
 warned not to be noisy. The twins carried 
 bundles and boxes up and downstairs in their 
 stocking-feet ; Homer pried off covers with a 
 muffled hammer, and shouldered trunks, empty 
 and full, leaving his shoes at the foot of the stairs. 
 Hester said nothing of a blinding headache and a 
 "jumping pain" in her back while she dusted 
 books and china. Hetty was everywhere and 
 ever busy, and nobody spoke a loud word all day. 
 
 "You might think there was a corpse in the 
 study instead of a sermon being born!" Hester
 
 44 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 had once sneered to her confidante. "I never 
 hear him preach, but I know I should be re- 
 minded of the mountain that brought forth a 
 mouse." 
 
 One of her father's many protests, addressed at 
 Hetty and to his wife, was that their eldest born 
 was "virtually a heathen." 
 
 "Home education in religion, even when 
 administered by the wisest and tenderest of 
 mothers like yourself, my love must still fall 
 short of such godly nurture and admonition as 
 are contemplated in the command : 'Forsake not 
 the assembling of yourselves together.' There is 
 didactic theology in David's holy breathing: 'A 
 day in thy courts is better than a thousand.' " 
 
 "Better than a thousand in the same place? I 
 should think so," interposed Hester's tuneless 
 pipe. "He needn't have been inspired to tell us 
 that ! Family worship suffices for my spiritual 
 needs. That must be the porch to the 'courts,' 
 at least." 
 
 In speaking she, too, looked at her mother, al- 
 though every word was aimed at her father. 
 
 "It is a cruel trick that we have!" Hetty had 
 said of the habit. "Every ball strikes that much- 
 tried and innocent woman, no matter who 
 throws it." 
 
 "Of course!" retorted the sarcastic daughter. 
 "And must while the angle of incidence is equal 
 to that of reflection."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 45 
 
 In the discussion upon family versus church 
 religion she carried her point by a coup d'ttat, 
 
 "Pews and staring pewholders are all well 
 enough for straight-backed Christians!" she 
 snarled. "I won't be made a holy show of to 
 gratify all the preachers and presbyteries in 
 America !" 
 
 Anything like physical deformity was especially 
 obnoxious to Mr. Wayt. The most onerous 
 duties pertaining to his holy office were visitation 
 of the sick and burial of the dead. Hester's beau- 
 tiful golden hair, falling far below her waist, veiled 
 her humped shoulders, and her refined face look- 
 ing out from this aureole, as she lay in her 
 wheeled chair, would be picturesquely interesting 
 in the chancel, if not seen too often there. The 
 coarse realism of her refusal routed him . com- 
 pletely. With an artistic shudder and a look of 
 eloquent misery, likewise directed at his wife, he 
 withdrew his forces from the field. That night 
 she read "Sartor Resartus" to him from three 
 o'clock until 6 A. M., so intolerable was his 
 agony of sleeplessness. 
 
 It happened so often that Hetty was the only 
 responsible member of the family who could re- 
 main at home with the crippled girl, that neither 
 Mr. nor Mrs. Wayt seemed to remark that her 
 churchgoing was less than nominal. Hester 
 called Sunday her "white-letter day," and was 
 usually then in her best and most tolerant temper,
 
 46 MR. WAYTS WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 while her fellow-sinner looked forward to the 
 comparative rest and liberty it afforded as the 
 wader in marshlands eyes a projecting shoulder 
 of firm ground and dry turf. 
 
 It was never more welcome than on the fair 
 May day when the Fairhill "people" crowded the 
 First Church to hear the new pulpit star. 
 
 "The prayer which preceded the sermon was a 
 sacred lyric," said the Monday issue of the Fair- 
 hill Pointer. "In this respect Rev. Mr. Wayt is 
 as remarkably gifted as in the oratory which 
 moved his auditors alternately to tears, and 
 smiles, and glows of religious fervor. We regret 
 the impossibility of reporting the burning stream 
 of supplication and ascription that flowed from 
 his heart through his lips, but a fragment of the 
 introduction, uttered slowly and impressively, is 
 herewith given verbatim, as a sample of incom- 
 parable felicity of diction : 
 
 '"THOU art mighty, merciful, masterful, and 
 majestic. We are feeble, fickle, finite, and fad- 
 ing.' "* 
 
 March Gilchrist had his say anent the sample 
 sentence on the way home from church. He was 
 not connected with the press, and his criticism 
 went no further than the ears of his somewhat 
 scandalized and decidedly diverted sister. 
 
 In intuitive anticipation of the reportorial 
 eulogy, he affirmed that the diction was not in- 
 comparable. 
 
 * Literal report.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 47 
 
 "I heard a Georgia negro preacher beat it all 
 hollow," he said. "He began with: 'THOU art 
 all-sufficient, self-sufficient, and ^-sufficient !' " 
 
 "March Gilchrist! How dreadful!" 
 
 They were passing the side windows of the 
 parsonage, which opened upon a quiet cross street. 
 May's laugh rippled through the bowed shutters 
 of the' dining room behind which sat a girl in a 
 blue flannel gown, holding upon her knee and 
 against her shoulder a hunchbacked child with a 
 weirdly wise face. They were watching the 
 people coming home from church. 
 
 "A religious mountebank is the most despica- 
 ble of humbugs," said March's breezy voice, as 
 he whirled a pebble from the walk with his cane, 
 and watched it leap to the middle of the street. 
 
 Hester twisted her neck to look into Hetty's 
 eyes. 
 
 "They are discussing their beloved and elo- 
 quent pastor! My heart goes out to those two 
 people!"
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 "HETTY! do you ever think what it would be 
 like to be engaged?" 
 
 "Engaged to do what?" said Hetty lazily. 
 
 She lay as in a cradle, in a grassy hollow under 
 an apple tree the Anak of his tribe. The 
 branches, freighted with pink and white blooms, 
 dipped earthward until the extreme twigs almost 
 brushed the grass, and shut in the two girls arbor- 
 wise. The May sun warmed the flowers into 
 fragrance that hinted subtly of continual fruiti- 
 ness. Hester said she tasted, rather than smelled 
 it. Bees hummed in the boughs; through the 
 still blandness of the air a light shower of petals 
 fell silently over Hetty's blue gown, settled upon 
 her hair, and drifted in the folds of the afghan 
 covering Hester's lower limbs. 
 
 Homer had discovered in the garden fence a 
 gate opening into this orchard, and confidentially 
 revealed the circumstance to Hetty who, in time, 
 imparted it to Hester, and conspired with her to 
 explore the paradise as soon as the boys and 
 Fanny were safely off to Sunday School. 
 
 "Engaged to do what?" Hetty had said in such 
 good faith that she opened dreamy eyes wide at 
 the accent of the reply. 
 48
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 49 
 
 "To be married, of course, Miss Ingenuous! 
 What else could I mean?" 
 
 "Oh-h-h!" still more indolently. "I don't 
 know that I ever thought far in that direction. 
 Why should I?" 
 
 "Why shouldn't you, or any other healthy and 
 passably good-looking girl, expect to be en- 
 gaged and be married and be happy? It is 
 time you began to take the matter into considera- 
 tion, if you never did before." 
 
 "There is usually another party to such an 
 arrangement." 
 
 "And why not in your case?" 
 
 "Where should he come from? Is he to drop 
 from the moon? Or out of the apple tree" 
 stirred to the simile by the flick of a tinted petal 
 upon her nose. "Or am I to stamp him out of 
 the earth, a la Pompey? And what could I do 
 with him if he were to pop up like a fairy prince, 
 at this or any other instant?" 
 
 "Fall in love with him, and marry him out-of- 
 hand ! I wish you would, Hetty, and take me to 
 live with you ! That is one of my dearest dreams. 
 I have thought it all out when the backache keeps 
 me awake at night, and when I get quiet dreamy 
 hours by day, when he is off pastoraling, and the 
 boys and Fan are at school, and baby Annie is 
 asleep, and I can hear Tony croning 'Sweet Julia' 
 so far away I can't distinguish the frightful words, 
 and you are going about the house singing to
 
 50 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 yourself, and blessing every room you enter like 
 a shifting sunbeam." 
 
 "Why, my pet, you are talking poetry!" 
 
 Hetty raised her head from the arms crossed 
 beneath it, and stared at the child. The light, 
 filtered through the mass of scented color, fresh- 
 ened her complexion and rounded the outlines of 
 her face; her solemn eyes looked upward; her 
 hands lay together, like two lily petals, upon the 
 coverlet. Unwittingly she was a living illustra- 
 tion of her father's theory of the Reality of the 
 Unseen. 
 
 "No !" she answered quietly. "Not poetry, 
 for it may easily come to pass that you should 
 have a husband and home of your own. I do 
 dream poems sometimes, if poetry is clouds and 
 sunsets and music nobody else hears, and voices 
 and love words and bosh!" 
 
 Hetty could not help laughing. 
 
 "Tell me some of the glory and the bosh ! This 
 is a beautiful confessional, Hester; I wish we had 
 nothing to do for a week but to lie on the grass, 
 and look at the blue sky through apple blossoms." 
 
 "Amen!" breathed her companion softly, and 
 for a while they were so quiet that the robins, 
 nesting upon the other side of the tree, began to 
 whisper together. 
 
 "Bosh and my poetry dreams are synonyms," 
 resumed Hester, her voice curiously mellowed 
 from its accustomed sharpness. "Other people
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 51 
 
 may say as much of theirs. I know it of mine. 
 There's the difference. All the same they are as 
 sweet as the poisoned honey we were reading 
 about the other day, which the bees make from 
 poppy fields. And while I suck it, I forget. My 
 romance has no more foundation than the story 
 of the Prince and the Little White Cat. Mine 
 is a broken-backed cat, but she comes straight 
 in my dreams after her head is cut off. You 
 don't suppose she minded that ! She must 
 have been so impatient when the Prince hesi- 
 tated that she was tempted to grab his sword 
 and saw through her own neck. You see she 
 recollected what she had been. The woman's 
 soul was cooped up in the cat's skin. And I 
 was eight years old when the evil spell was laid 
 upon me ! " 
 
 The tears in Hetty's throat hindered response. 
 Never until this instant, with all her love for her 
 dependent charge, her knowledge of her suffer- 
 ings, and the infinite pity these engendered, had 
 the deprivations Hester's affliction involved 
 seemed so horribly, so atrociously cruel. The 
 listener's nails dug furrows in her palms, she set 
 her teeth, and looking up to the unfeeling smile 
 of the deaf and dumb heavens, she said something 
 in her heart that would have left faint hope of 
 her eternal weal in the orthodox mind of her 
 brother-in-law. 
 
 Hester was speaking again.
 
 52 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 "Every painter has his models. I have had 
 mine. I dress each one up and work the wires 
 to make him or her go through the motions 
 my motions, mind you ! not theirs, poor puppets ! 
 When the dress gets shabby, or the limbs rickety, 
 I throw them upon the rubbish heap, and look 
 out for another. 
 
 "I got a new one last Thursday. The man 
 who jumped over me in the station, and afterward 
 carried me into the restaurant (such strong, steady 
 arms as he had !) is a real hero ! Oh, I am build- 
 ing a noble castle to put him in ! He lives near 
 here, for he passes the house three times a day. 
 His eyes have a smile in them, and his mustache 
 droops just like Charles I.'s, and he walks with a 
 spring as if he were so full of life he longed to 
 leap or fly, and his voice has a ring and resonance 
 like an organ. The pretty girl that called him 
 'Mark' to-day, is his sister." 
 
 "Why not his wife?" 
 
 "Wife ! Don't you suppose I know the cut of 
 a married man, even on the street? He hasn't 
 the first symptom of the craft. He doesn't swag- 
 ger, and he doesn't slink. A husband does one 
 or the other." 
 
 Hetty laughed out merrily. There was a sense 
 of relief in Hester's return to the sarcastic raillery 
 habitual to her, which made her mirth the 
 heartier. 
 
 A man crossing the lower slope of the orchard
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 53 
 
 heard the bubbling peal, and looked in the direc- 
 tion of the big tree. So did his attendant, a huge 
 St. Bernard dog. He tore up the acclivity, bel- 
 lowing ferociously. Before his master's shout 
 arose above his baying he was almost upon the 
 girls. At the instant of alarm, Hetty had thrown 
 herself before the wheeled chair and the helpless 
 occupant, and faced the foe. Crouching slightly, 
 as for a spring, her face blenched, eyes wide and 
 steady, she stood in the rosy shadow of the 
 branches, both hands outthrown to ward off the 
 bounding assailant. 
 
 "What a pose !" was March's first thought, pro- 
 fessional instinct asserting itself, concerned 
 though he was at the panic for which he was re- 
 sponsible. In the same lightning flash came 
 "I'll paint that girl some day!" 
 
 "Don't be frightened !" he was calling, as he 
 ran. "He will not hurt you !" 
 
 Hester had shrieked feebly, and lay almost 
 swooning among her cushions. Hetty had not 
 uttered a sound, but, as the master laid his hand 
 on the dog's collar her knees gave way under her, 
 and she sank down by the cripple's chair, her 
 head resting upon the edge of the wicker side. 
 She was fighting desperately for composure, or 
 the semblance of it, and did not look up when 
 March began to apologize. 
 
 "I am awfully sorry," he panted, ruefully peni- 
 tent. "And so will Thor my dog, you know
 
 54 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 be when he understands how badly he has be- 
 haved. He is seldom so inhospitable." 
 
 The words brought up Hetty's head and wits. 
 
 "Are we trespassing?" she queried anxiously. 
 "We thought that this orchard was a part of the 
 parsonage grounds, or we would not have come. 
 It is we who should beg your pardon." 
 
 "By no means !" He had taken off his hat, and 
 in his regretful sincerity looked handsomer than 
 when his eyes had smiled, concluded Hester, 
 whose senses were rapidly returning. "My name 
 is Gilchrist, and my father's grounds adjoin those 
 of the parsonage. He had the gate cut between 
 your garden and the orchard, that the clergy- 
 man's family might be as much at home here as 
 ourselves. I hope you will forgive my dog's mis- 
 demeanor, and my heedlessness in not seeing you 
 before he had a chance to frighten you." 
 
 Summoning something of his father's gracious 
 stateliness, he continued, more formally : 
 
 "Have I the pleasure of addressing Miss 
 Wayt?" 
 
 Bow and question were for Hetty. Hester's 
 voice, thin and dissonant, replied with old-fash- 
 ioned decorum of manner, but in unconventional 
 phrase : 
 
 "/ have the misfortune to be Miss Wayt. This 
 is Mr. Wayt's wife's sister, Miss Ailing." 
 
 It was a queer speech, made queerer by the 
 prim articulation the author deemed proper in the
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 55 
 
 situation. March tried not to see that the sub- 
 ject of the second clause of the introduction 
 flushed deeply, while her mute return of his bow 
 had a serious natural grace he thought charming. 
 When he begged that she would resume her seat, 
 the little roguish curl at the corner of her lips, 
 which he recollected as archly demure, came into 
 play. 
 
 "We have no chairs to offer, but if you do not 
 object to the best we have to give" finishing 
 the half invitation by seating herself upon a grass- 
 grown root, jutting out near the trunk of the 
 tree. 
 
 "The nicest carpet and lounge in the world," 
 affirmed March, sitting down upon the sward. 
 "Odd, isn't it, that American men don't know 
 how to loll on the turf as English do? Our 
 climate is ever so much drier and we have three 
 times as many fair days in the year, and some of 
 us seem to be as loosely put together. But we 
 don't understand how to fling ourselves down all 
 in a heap that doesn't look awkward either, and 
 be altogether at ease in genuine Anglican fashion. 
 Even if there are ladies present, an Englishman 
 lies on the grass, and it is considered 'quite the 
 thing, don't you know?' They say the imported 
 American never gets the hang of it, try as he will. 
 A man must be born on the other side or he can't 
 learn it." 
 
 "There may be something in your countryman's
 
 56 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SJSTEJt. 
 
 born reverence for women that prevents him 
 from mastering the accomplishment," said Hetty, 
 a little dryly. 
 
 March bowed gayly. 
 
 "Thank you for the implied compliment in the 
 name of American men ! I am glad you are get- 
 ting the benefit of this perfect May day. There, 
 at any rate, we have the advantage of the Mother 
 Country, if she has given us the Maypole and 
 'The Queen of the May.' This is a sour and 
 dubious month in Merry England." 
 
 "You have been there, then?" 
 
 Hester said it abruptly, as she said most things, 
 but the eagerness dashed with longing that gave 
 plaintive cadence to the question, caught March's 
 ear. 
 
 "Several times. I sailed from Liverpool twelve 
 days ago. I was just off the steamer, and may 
 be a little unsteady on my feet, when I collided 
 with your carriage last Thursday, and you gener- 
 ously forgave me." 
 
 The girl was regarding him with frank admira- 
 tion that would have annoyed an ultra-sensitive 
 man, and amused, while it flattered, a vain one. 
 
 "It must be heavenly to travel in the country 
 of Scott and Dickens!" she said, quaintly nai've. 
 "How you must have enjoyed it ! 
 
 "I did, exceedingly, but less on account of 
 'David Copperfield' and 'Nicholas Nickleby' 
 than because, as a boy, I reveled in English his-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 57 
 
 tory, and that my mother's father, for whom I was 
 named, was English. You should hear my sister 
 talk of her first journey across England. She 
 would say every little while in an awed undertone : 
 'This is just living Dickens!' You have not met 
 her yet, I think?" to Hetty. 
 
 "No." 
 
 The tone was reserved, without being rude. 
 He could have fancied that sadness underlay civil 
 regret. Perhaps May had been mistaken in post- 
 poning her call until the parsonage was in perfect 
 order. 
 
 "She means to call very soon. She thought it 
 would be unneighborly to intrude before you had 
 recovered from the fatigue of removal and travel. 
 Mr. Wayt was my father's guest for a day or 
 two, you know, before your arrival, and I have 
 since had the pleasure of meeting him several 
 times and of hearing him preach this morning." 
 
 In the pause that succeeded the speech the 
 church bell began to ring for afternoon service. 
 Under the impression that he had lost caste in 
 not attending upon the second stated ordinance 
 of the sanctuary he offered a lame explanation. 
 
 "I am afraid I am not an exemplary church- 
 goer. But I find one sermon as much as I can 
 digest and practice from Sunday to Sunday. My 
 mother doesn't like to hear me say it. She 
 thinks such sentiments revolutionary and un- 
 canonical, and no doubt she is right."
 
 5 8 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 "Anybody is excusable for preferring to wor- 
 ship 'under green apple boughs' to-day," observed 
 Hester, with uncharacteristic tact. "You see we 
 have always lived in cities, great and small. We 
 have been used to brick walls and narrow, high 
 houses, with paved backyards, with cats on the 
 fences" disgustfully "and wet clothes flapping 
 in your eyes if you tried to pretend to ruralize. 
 Everybody hasn't as much imagination as Young 
 John Chivery, who said the flapping of sheets 
 and towels in his face 'made him feel like he was 
 in groves.' " 
 
 "Fairhill has preserved the rural element 
 remarkably well, when one considers her tens of 
 thousands of inhabitants, her water supply and 
 electric lights," said March; "and luckily one 
 doesn't need much imagination to help out his 
 enjoyment of the world on this Sunday after- 
 noon." 
 
 His tone was so respectfully familiar, his bear- 
 ing so easy, the girls forgot that he was a stranger. 
 
 "It wasn't your Dickens who said it, but you 
 can, perhaps, tell me who did write a verse that 
 has been running in my unpoetical brain ever 
 since I entered your fairy bower," he said by and 
 by. 
 
 " The orchard's all a-flutter with pink ; 
 
 Robins' twitter, and wild bees' humming 
 Break the song with a thrill to think 
 
 How sweet is life when summer is coming.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 59 
 
 "That is the way it goes, I believe. It is a 
 miracle for me to recollect so much rhyme. The 
 robins and bees must have helped me out." 
 
 "I wish I knew who did that!" sighed Hester. 
 "Oh ! what it must be to write poetry or paint 
 pictures!" 
 
 March's glance of mirthful suspicion changed 
 at sight of the knotted brow and wistful eyes. 
 
 "One ought to be thankful for either gift," he 
 said quietly. "I was thinking just now how I 
 should like to make a picture of what I saw as I 
 ran up the hill. May I try some day?" 
 
 Hetty drew herself up and looked inquiry. 
 Hester's hands fluttered, painful scarlet throbbed 
 into her cheeks. 
 
 "Can you draw? Do you paint? Are you an 
 artist f " bringing out the last word in an excited 
 whisper. 
 
 March was too much touched to trifle with her 
 agitation. "I try to be," he answered simply, 
 almost reverently. 
 
 "And would you may I would it annoy 
 you Hetty! ask him. You know what I want !" 
 
 "My darling!" The cooing, comforting mur- 
 mur was passing sweet. "Be quiet for one 
 moment, and you can put what you want to say 
 into words." As the fragile form quivered under 
 her hand, a light seemed to dawn upon her. 
 "You see, Mr. Gilchrist, my niece loves pictures 
 better than anything else and she never has met
 
 60 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 
 
 a real, live artist before," the corners of her mouth 
 yielding a little. "She has had a great longing 
 to know how the beautiful things that delight her 
 are made how they grow into being. Is that it, 
 dear?" 
 
 Hester nodded, her eyes luminous with tears 
 she strove to drive back. 
 
 March struck his hands together with boyish 
 glee. 
 
 "I have it! I will make a study of 'orchards 
 all a-flutter with pink,' and you shall see me put 
 in every stroke. May I begin to-morrow? 
 Blossom-time is short. How unspeakably jolly ! 
 May we, Miss Ailing?" 
 
 The proposition was so ingenuous, and Hester's 
 imploring eyes were so eloquent, that the referee 
 turned pale under the heart-wrench demur cost 
 her. 
 
 "Dear!" she said soothingly, to the invalid, "it 
 would not be right to promise until we have con- 
 sulted your mother. Mr. Gilchrist is very kind. 
 Indeed" raising an earnest face whose pallor set 
 him to wondering "you must believe that we 
 do appreciate your goodness in offering her this 
 great happiness. But Hester, love, we must ask 
 mamma." 
 
 March had seen Mrs. Wayt in church that fore- 
 noon, and been struck anew with her delicate 
 loveliness. Could she, with that Madonna face, 
 be a stern task-mistress? With the rise of diffi-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 6 1 
 
 culties, his desire to paint the picture increased. 
 That this unfortunate child, with the artist soul 
 shining piteous through her big eyes, should see 
 the fair creation grow under his hand had become 
 a matter of moment. As poor Hester's effort to 
 express acquiescence or dissent died in a hyster- 
 ical gurgle, and a shamed attempt to hide her hot 
 face with her hands, the tender-hearted fellow 
 arose to take leave. 
 
 "I won't urge my petition until you have had 
 time to think it over. But I don't withdraw it. 
 May I bring my sister over to see you both? 
 She is fond of pictures, too, and dabbles in water- 
 colors on her own account. Excuse me and 
 Thor for our unintentionally unceremonious 
 introduction to your notice, and thank you for a 
 delightful half-hour. Good-afternoon !" 
 
 Hetty looked after him, as his elastic stride 
 measured off the orchard slope a contradiction 
 of strange mortification and strange delight war- 
 ring within her. It was as if a young sun-god had 
 paused in the entrance of a gruesome cave, and 
 talked familiarly with the prisoners chained to the 
 walls. With all her resolute purpose to oppose 
 the intimacy which she foresaw must arise from 
 the proposed scheme of picture-making, she could 
 not ignore the straining of her spirit upon her 
 bonds. 
 
 "Oh!" wailed Hester, lowering her hands, "I 
 didn't mean to be so foolish ! I will be brave
 
 62 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 and sensible, but you know, Hetty, I have never 
 had anything like this offered to me before. It 
 is like dying with thirst with water before one's 
 eyes, to give it up. And when he said : 'Blossom- 
 time is short,' it rushed over me that I never 
 had any I can never have any. I am just a 
 withered, useless, ugly bud that will never be a 
 flower." 
 
 An agony of sobs followed. 
 
 "My precious one !" Hetty's tears flowed with 
 hers. "Do I ever forget your sorrows? Are you 
 listening, dear? If possible, you shall have this 
 one poor little pleasure. You must trust your 
 mother's love and mine, to deny you nothing we 
 can safely give. If we must refuse, it is only 
 bearing a little more !" 
 
 The going out of the May day was calm as 
 with remembered happiness, but the chill that 
 lurks in the imperfectly tempered air of the 
 newborn season, awaiting the departure of the 
 sun, was so pronounced by seven o'clock that 
 Hetty called upon Homer to build a fire in the 
 sitting room, where she and Hester were sitting. 
 The children were sent to bed at eight o'clock. 
 Mrs. Wayt was lying down in her chamber 
 with one of her frequent headaches, rallying 
 her forces against her husband's return from the 
 long walk he found necessary "to work off the 
 cumulative electricity unexpended by the day's
 
 MR. IVA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 63 
 
 "I belong to the peripatetic school of philos- 
 ophy," he said to a parishioner whom he met two 
 miles from home. 
 
 "He was forging ahead like a trained prize- 
 fighter," reported the admiring pewholder to a 
 friend. "Nothing of the sentimental weakling 
 about him ! " 
 
 March and May Gilchrist, pausing upon the 
 parsonage porch, at sound of a voice singing softly 
 and clearly within, saw, past a half-drawn sash cur- 
 tain, Hetty rocking back and forth in the fire- 
 light, with Hester in her arms. The cripple's 
 head was thrown back slightly, bringing into re- 
 lief the small, fine-featured face and lustrous eyes. 
 Her wealth of hair waved and glittered with the 
 motion of the chair like spun gold. It might 
 have been a young mother crooning to her baby 
 in a sort of chant, the words of which were dis- 
 tinctly audible to brother and sister, the nearest 
 window being lowered a few inches from the top. 
 Hester loved heat and light as well as a salaman- 
 der, but could not breathe freely in a closed room. 
 To-night was one of her "bad times," and nothing 
 but Hetty's singing could win her a moderate 
 degree of ease. 
 
 " Blow winds ! " [sang Hetty] 
 
 " And waft through all the rooms 
 The snowflakes of the cherry blooms ! 
 Blow winds ! and bend within my reach 
 The fiery blossoms of the peach !
 
 64 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 " O Life and Love ! O happy throng 
 Of thoughts whose only speech is song ! 
 O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
 Blithe as the air is, and as free ? '' 
 
 March moved forward hastily to ring the bell. 
 He felt like an eavesdropping spy upon the un- 
 conscious girls. Without any knowledge of the 
 isolation and mutual dependence of the two, the 
 visitors perceived pathos in the scene in the 
 clinging helplessness of one and the brooding ten- 
 derness expressed in the close clasp and bent 
 head of the other. 
 
 The singing ceased instantly at the sound of 
 the gong. "By George! what an alarm !" mut- 
 tered March, discomfited by the clang succeeding 
 his touch. "And I gave it such a genteel pull !" 
 
 His attitude was apologetic still, when Mr. 
 Wayt's wife's sister opened the door. 
 
 "I seem fated to be heralded noisily !" he said 
 regretfully* "I had as little idea of the tone of 
 your doorbell as you had of the power of Thor's 
 lungs. Miss Ailing, let me introduce my sister! 
 She gave me no peace until I brought her to see 
 you." 
 
 May extended her hand with unmistakable in- 
 tention of good fellowship. 
 
 "I scolded him for stealing a march upon me 
 this afternoon while I, like a dutiful Christian, 
 was in church," she said. Her .smile was her 
 brother's, her blithe, refined tones her own. "But
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 65 
 
 I mean to improve my advantages the more dili- 
 gently on that account." 
 
 The genial persiflage had bridged over the 
 always awkward transit from front door to draw- 
 ing room when the host is the conductor. It was 
 the more embarrassing in this case because the 
 two meagerly furnished parlors were unlighted 
 except as a glimmer from the hall gas added to 
 the sense of space and emptiness. 
 
 "Allow me!" March took from Hetty's fingers 
 the match she had lighted, and reached up to the 
 chandelier. The white illumination flashed upon 
 a pleasing study of an up-looking manly face, with 
 honest, hazel eyes, drooping mustache, and teeth 
 that gleamed in the smile attending the question : 
 "I hope your niece is none the worse for her 
 fright?" 
 
 "Thank you! I think not. She is rather nerv- 
 ous than timid, and not usually afraid of dogs." 
 
 "I hope we can see her to-night?" May took 
 up ;the word. "My brother says she is such a 
 dainty, bright little creature that I am impatient 
 to meet her." 
 
 Hetty's eyes glowed with gratitude and sur- 
 prise. No other visitor had ever named the 
 afflicted daughter of the house in this tone. The 
 frank, cordial praise kept back no implication of 
 pitying patronage. Mr. Wayt's wife's sister had 
 knocked about the world of churches and parishes 
 long enough to know that the perfect breeding
 
 66 MR, WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 which ignores deformity without overlooking the 
 deformed is the rarest of social gifts. In any 
 other circumstances, she would have refused 
 steadfastly to subject Hester to the scrutiny of a 
 stranger. As it was, she hesitated visibly. 
 
 "She is seldom able to receive company in the 
 evening. But I will see how she is feeling to- 
 night." 
 
 She had remarkable self-possession, as March 
 had noted already. She got herself out of the 
 room without mumble or halt. She walked well, 
 and with a single eye to her destination, with no 
 diffident conjectures as to how she moved or 
 looked. March had keen perceptions and critical 
 notions upon such points. 
 
 "What an interesting looking girl," observed 
 May, in an undertone. 
 
 And March, as cautiously "I hope she will let 
 us see the little one! She is the jolliest grig you 
 can conceive of." 
 
 Both tried not to look about them while 
 waiting for the hostess' return. The place was 
 forlornly clean, and the new carpets gave forth 
 the ungoodly smell of oily wool that nothing 
 but time and use can dissipate. Plaintive efforts 
 to abolish stiffness were evident in chairs grouped 
 in conversational attitudes near the summer- 
 fronted fireplace, and a table pulled well away 
 from the wall, with books and photographs lying 
 about on it. March could fancy Hetty doing
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 67 
 
 these things, then standing disheartened, in the 
 waste of moquette, under the consciousness that 
 there was not one-fifth enough furniture for the 
 vast rooms. At this point, he spoke again sub- 
 duedly : 
 
 "What possessed the church to build these 
 desolate barns and call them family parlors?" 
 
 May was a parish worker, and looked her sur- 
 prise. 
 
 "A parsonage must have plenty of parlor room 
 for church sociables." 
 
 "Then those who use them ought to furnish 
 them. Or, say! it wouldn't be amiss to keep 
 them up as show places are abroad by charging 
 a shilling admission fee." 
 
 Hetty's return saved him from deserved rebuke. 
 
 "My niece will be very happy to see you," she 
 reported, rather formally, her eyes darkling into 
 vague trouble or doubt as she said it. On the 
 way across the hall she added hurriedly to May: 
 "We never overpersuade her to meet strangers. 
 In this case there was no need." 
 
 May's gloved hand sought hers with a swift, 
 involuntary gesture. It was the merest touch 
 that emphasized the low "Thank you !" but both 
 struck straight home to Hetty's heart. The Gil- 
 christ tact was inimitable. 
 
 Hester lay upon a lounge, propped into a sit- 
 ting posture with pillows. Her hair and drapings 
 were cunningly disposed. A casual eye would
 
 68 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 
 
 not have penetrated the secret of the withered 
 limbs and curved spine. A red spot like a rose- 
 leaf rested upon each cheek, her eyes shone, and 
 her silent smile revealed small, perfect teeth like 
 a two-year-old baby's. She was so winsome that 
 May stooped impulsively to kiss her as she would 
 a pretty child. 
 
 "I came to tell you how angry AVC all are my 
 father, mother, and I with my brother and his 
 dog for scaring you to-day," she said, seating her- 
 self on an ottoman by the lounge, and retaining 
 hold of the wee hand until it ceased to twitch and 
 burn in hers. "I did think Thor knew better! 
 His tail committed innumerable apologies to me 
 when I told him I hoped to see you this evening." 
 
 March and Hetty, chatting together near the 
 crackling wood fire, caught presently sentences 
 relative to colors and pencils and portfolios, and 
 slackened their talk to listen. May had elicited 
 the confession that Hester's brush was a solace 
 and the only pastime she had "except reading 
 and Hetty's music." 
 
 "But it's only trying with me," said the tuneless 
 voice. "I have had no teacher except Hetty." 
 
 "My dear Hester!" cried the person named. 
 "Be candid, and say 'worse than none !' " 
 
 Hester colored vividly at this evidence that her 
 confidences to her new friend were shared by 
 others, but rallied gallantly to support her asser- 
 tion.
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 69 
 
 "She doesn't think she has any talent for draw- 
 ing, but she took lessons for three months that 
 she might teach me how to shade and manage 
 perspective, and use water colors. She and I 
 amuse ourselves with caricatures and all that, and 
 I make drawings very poor ones to illustrate 
 poems and stories, while she reads to me, and I 
 do a little you can't imagine how little and how 
 badly! in color. Just bits, you know grass 
 and mossy sticks, and brambles running over 
 stones, and frost-bitten leaves and such things. 
 Hetty is always on the lookout for studies for me. 
 I cannot sit up long enough to undertake any- 
 thing more important if I had the skill. And I 
 shouldn't dare venture to copy anything really 
 beautiful such as apple blossoms," with a short- 
 lived smile at March that left a plait between her 
 eyes. 
 
 Intercepting Hetty's apprehensive glance, he 
 smiled in return, but forbore to introduce the 
 petition left with them that afternoon. May had 
 been stringent on this point. 
 
 "Don't allude to it this evening!" she enjoined 
 upon him. "Nothing is in worse taste than to 
 use a first call as a lever for selfish ends. I'll run 
 in to-morrow morning, and try my powers of per- 
 suasion. Meantime, get your canvas and palette 
 ready." 
 
 Hetty's spirits rose when she perceived that the 
 exciting topic was avoided. The four were in
 
 7 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 the swing of merry converse when the clock struck 
 nine, and, as if he had waited for the signal, Mr. 
 Wayt walked in. March, who sat by Hetty, saw 
 her stiffen all over, and her eyes sink to the floor. 
 Hester began to cough irrepressibly a hard, dry 
 hack, to quiet which Hetty went to get a glass of 
 water. The pallor of the pastor's face had a 
 bilious tinge ; his eyes were sunken, his whole 
 appearance haggard and wild. Yet his greeting 
 to the guests was effusive, his flow of language 
 unabated. Neither daughter nor sister-in-law 
 offered to second him. Hester's roses faded, the 
 ever present fold between her eyebrows was 
 almost a scowl. Hetty was coldly imperturbable, 
 and the Gilchrists soon made a movement to go. 
 
 Mr. Wayt stepped forward airily to accompany 
 them to the door, Hetty falling into the rear and 
 parting from them with a grave bow upon the 
 threshold of the sitting room. 
 
 "My regards to your estimable parents," said 
 the host on the porch, his pulpit tone carrying 
 far through the night. "A clerical friend of mine 
 dubbed Judge Aaron Hollingshed of Chicago, an 
 active elder in his church, and his wife, who was 
 a true mother in Israel 'Aaron and her /' I 
 already, in spirit, apply the like titles to Judge 
 and Mrs. Gilchrist. It is such spirited support as 
 theirs that upholds the hands of the modern 
 Moses against the Amaleks of the day. Thank 
 you for calling, and good-night to you both."
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MAY GlLCHRlST had not overestimated her per- 
 suasive powers. A call on Mrs. Wayt, under- 
 taken as soon as she had seen, from her watch 
 window, the tall, black figure of the clergyman 
 issue from his gate, and take his way down-town, 
 won his wife's sanction to the presence of her sis- 
 ter and daughter in the orchard that afternoon to 
 watch Miss Gilchrist's brother upon a sketch he 
 proposed to begin before the apple blossoms fell. 
 
 "I shall be there, of course," the young diplo- 
 matist mentioned casually. "I am studying art 
 in an amateurish way, under my brother's direc- 
 tion. I dearly enjoy seeing him paint. His 
 hand is so firm and rapid, and his eye so true ! 
 Your daughter tells me she is fond of drawing. 
 March and I would be only too happy to render 
 any assistance in our power to forward her studies 
 in that line." 
 
 "My sister has spoken to me of your kindness 
 and his," Mrs. Wayt answered thoughtfully. 
 "She told me also that she had referred the 
 question of accepting Mr. Gilchrist's generous 
 proposition to me. Hesitation seems ungracious, 
 but my poor child is very excitable, and in nerve
 
 72 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 so unfit to work long at anything that I have 
 doubted the expediency of allowing her to be- 
 come interested in her favorite pursuit to the 
 extent necessary for the acquisition of any degree 
 of skill." 
 
 Nevertheless May went home victorious, and 
 Mrs. Wayt, disquiet in eye and soul, sought her 
 sister and detailed the steps of the siege and the 
 surrender. 
 
 "Refusal was impossible without risking the 
 displeasure of influential parishioners, or exciting 
 suspicions that might be more hurtful," she con- 
 cluded. 
 
 Hetty was cleaning silver in the dining room. 
 Over her buff gingham she wore a voluminous bib 
 apron ; housewifely solicitude informed her whole 
 personality. Her hair was turned back from her 
 temples, and the roughened roll showed rust-red 
 lights in a bar of sunshine crossed by her head as 
 she moved. The lines of her face had what Hester 
 called "their forenoon sag" a downward inclina- 
 tion that signified as much care as she could bear. 
 She rubbed a tablespoon until she could see each 
 loosened hair and drooping line in it, before 
 unclosing her thinned lips to reply. Even then 
 her speech was reluctant. 
 
 "The child is yours, Frances not mine, dearly 
 as I love her. I understand as well as you how 
 cruel it seems to deny her what is, in itself, a 
 harmless pleasure. Still, we have agreed up to
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 73 
 
 this time that it is inexpedient to give people the 
 run of the house, and this looks like a straight 
 road to that." 
 
 She did not glance up in speaking, or after- 
 ward. Her accent was unimpassioned, her 
 thoughts apparently engrossed in the business of 
 bringing polish out of tarnish. 
 
 "There are circumstances that may alter cases 
 and premises," returned Mrs. Wayt deprecat- 
 ingly. "I cannot but feel that we may begin to 
 argue and determine from a different standpoint. 
 I wish you could be a little more sanguine, dear." 
 
 "You don't wish it more than I do, sister! I 
 wasn't built upon the 'Hope on, Hope ever' plan. 
 My utmost effort in that direction is to make the 
 best of what cannot be bettered. And since you 
 have said 'Yes' to this painting scheme we will 
 think only of what a boon it will be to Hester. 
 The new cook is a more imminent difficulty. This 
 house is large, and the salary excellent, I admit, 
 but it would have been wise to wait until our 
 arrival before engaging her." 
 
 She knew that her sister was as much surprised 
 as herself at Mr. Wayt's commission to Mrs. 
 Gilchrist, also that the wife would not plead this 
 ignorance in self-defense. 
 
 "Homer, you, and I could have divided the 
 housework, as we did in other places," continued 
 Hetty, attacking a row of forks, now that the 
 spoons were done with, "and we could hire a
 
 74 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 woman by the day to wash and iron. The cook 
 may justify Mrs. Gilchrist's recommendation. I 
 dare say she will. Only but I'll not utter 
 another croak to-day ! You are an angelic opti- 
 mist, and I am given over to pessimism of the 
 opposite type. We will accept Mary Ann and 
 the rest of the goods the Fairhill gods provide, 
 including the open-air studio, eat, drink, and be 
 merry, and make up our minds that to-morow we 
 wont die ! I'd seal the covenant with a kiss if I 
 were quite certain that I am not silicon-ed up 
 to the eyes." 
 
 Mrs. Wayt bore a pained and heavy heart to 
 the nursery and her mending basket. She loved 
 Hetty fondly, and with what abundant reason no 
 one knew so well as the heroic wife of a selfishly 
 eccentric man. She trusted her sister's sterling 
 sense, and in most instances was willing to abide 
 by her judgment, but there were radical differ- 
 ences in their views upon certain subjects. The 
 very pains Hetty took to avert open discussion 
 of what lay like a carking blight upon the spirits 
 of both caused friction and rawness, and the 
 feigned levity with which she closed the door 
 upon the topic would have been insult from any- 
 one else. She had no alternative but to submit, 
 no help but in the Refuge of all pure souls 
 tempted almost out of measure by the sins and 
 perversities of those dearest to them. Upon the 
 knees of her heart she besought wisdom and com-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 75 
 
 fort, and sweet satire upon the pious duty of 
 self-examination ! forgiveness for her intoler- 
 ance of others' foibles! 
 
 Baby Annie was building block houses upon 
 the floor, and filling them with dandelions. 
 Homer had brought a small basketful up to her 
 just before Mrs. Wayt was summoned to her 
 visitor, and had helped the child erect a castle 
 while the mother was below. Upon her entrance, 
 he shuffled out as sheepishly as if she had detected 
 him rifling the pockets of her husband's Sunday 
 clothes. These lay over a chair by her work 
 table. While she prayed, her fingers plied the 
 needle upon a ripped lining and two loose 
 buttons. 
 
 "See, mamma," entreated the little one. "So 
 many dandeyions! Annie make house for dee 
 papa!" The mother stooped to kiss her; a tear 
 splashed upon the mass of wilting golden disks 
 packed into papa's treasure chamber. At the 
 same age Hester had prattled of "dee papa," and 
 was his faithful shadow wherever he would allow 
 her to follow. He had been too busy of late 
 years and too distraught by various anxieties to 
 take much notice of the younger children, but he 
 had made a pet of little Hester. He used to call 
 her " Lassie with glory crowned," as he twined and 
 burnished her sunny curls around his fingers. 
 Annie was a loving little darling, but neither so 
 sprightly nor so beautiful as her first-born at the
 
 ?6 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 same age. She worshiped her father, and he 
 was beginning to recognize and be pleased by her 
 preference. 
 
 "Poor Percy!" 
 
 "Papa sick?" asked the child, startled by the 
 ejaculation. 
 
 "No, my darling. Papa is very well. Mamma 
 is only sorry ! sorry ! sorry!" 
 
 "Sorry ! sorry ! sorry! Mamma sorry ! sorry ! 
 sorry! " While she crammed the yellow flowers 
 into the castle, the baby made the words into a 
 song, catching intonation and emphasis as they 
 had escaped her mother's lips. 
 
 Dandelions dying were as fair to her as dande- 
 lions golden-crisp in the meadow grass. A drop 
 of blood, red from the heart, would mean no more 
 than a coral bead. 
 
 At three o'clock, Hester's chair was drawn by 
 Homer into the orchard. The painter, his sister, 
 his dog, and his easel were already in place. 
 March had sketched in the arbor, and indicated 
 the figures sufficiently to reveal the purpose of 
 the picture. 
 
 Blossom-time is short, but fortunately the 
 weather that week was phenomenally equable for 
 May. In eight days the painting was finished. 
 The reader may have noticed it at the Academy 
 exhibition the next winter, where it was cata- 
 logued as "The Defense." Hetty's portrait and 
 pose were admirably rendered, and the bound of
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 77 
 
 the big St. Bernard was fiercely spirited. But 
 the wonder of the group was the occupant of the 
 low wicker carriage. 
 
 "My baby daughter!" faltered Mrs. Wayt, 
 on first seeing it, and no more words would 
 come. 
 
 To herself and to March, later and confiden- 
 tially, Hetty spoke of it as ' 'Hester glorified." At 
 times, she was almost afraid to look at it. It was 
 the face of an infant, but an infant whose soul 
 had outleaped the limitations of years. The filmy 
 gold of her hair lay, cloudlike, about her, her per- 
 fectly molded hands were clasped in the fearless 
 delight of ignorance as she leaned forward to wel- 
 come the enemy her custodian was ready to beat 
 off. It was Hester in every lineament. 
 
 Even the baby knew it. But it was Hester as 
 her brothers and sisters would never see her unless 
 among the fadeless blossoms of the world where 
 crooked things will be made straight. 
 
 March Gilchrist was not poetical except with 
 his brush. It was his tongue, his song, his story. 
 Through it Hetty Ailing first learned to know 
 him, yet they were never strangers after that ear- 
 liest meeting in the orchard. She was a capital 
 sitter, and he lingered over her portrait as he 
 dared not over Hester's for fear of wearying her. 
 While Hetty posed, and he painted, May and 
 Hester became warm friends. Miss Gilchrist had 
 her own sketchbook, and March improvised an
 
 78 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 easel for it, which was attached to the wheeled 
 chair, in desk fashion. Under May's tutelage 
 Hester made a study of apple blossoms, and 
 another of plumy grasses which the overlooker 
 praised with honest warmth, and promised to 
 keep forever as souvenirs of the "pink-and-white 
 week." The robins were so used to the sight 
 of the social group that they exchanged tender 
 confidences freely overhead, as to summer plans 
 and prospective birdlings. Thor's massive bulk 
 crushed, daily, the same area of sunny turf, and 
 he may have had canine views as to the folly of 
 working when the sun was warm and the sod 
 softest. The orchard, where every tree was a 
 mighty bouquet, was an impervious screen be- 
 tween the party and the streets and such windows 
 as commanded the slope. 
 
 "It is paradise, with rows upon rows of shin- 
 ing, fluffy angels to keep out the rest of the 
 world !" said Hester, on the afternoon of the last 
 sitting. "I'm glad it is we who are inside! And 
 not another soul!" 
 
 March was dabbling his brushes in a wide- 
 mouthed bottle of turpentine, preparatory to put- 
 ting them up. 
 
 "Nothing exclusive about her is there?" he 
 laughed to Hetty, in mock admiration. 
 She answered in the same vein : 
 "She was always an incorrigible aristocrat !" 
 "Say a beggarly aristocrat, and free your
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 79 
 
 mind!" retorted Hester good-humoredly. "I 
 don't care who knows it. Who doesn't prefer a 
 select coterie to a promiscuous 'crush'? I'd like 
 to dig out this orchard just as I would a square 
 of turf, and set it down in the middle of the 
 South Seas (wherever they may be) where the 
 trees wouldn't shed their blossoms the whole 
 year round, and we four with the robins and 
 Thor thrown in ornamentally might paint and 
 talk and live forever and a day. I used to won- 
 der what answer I would make to the fairy who 
 offered three wishes but I am quite ready for 
 her now. I'd fuse them all into one!" 
 
 "Are you sure? Going! Going! the last call! 
 Gone/" cried March, bringing down his biggest 
 brush, h la auctioneer's hammer, upon Thor's 
 head. 
 
 "Gone it is!" responded Hester, folding her 
 tiny hands upon her heart, and closing her eyes 
 in an ecstasy of satisfaction. "Let nobody speak 
 for five minutes. (Look at your watch, Mr. Gil- 
 christ !) For five minutes we will make believe 
 that the deed is done, and we are translated. I 
 hear the surf on the shores of the 
 
 " Dear little isle of our own, 
 Where the winds never sigh, and the skies never weep. 
 
 "Hush!" 
 
 They humored this one of her caprices, as they 
 had others. She was full of fancies, some odd,
 
 8o MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 some ghastly, some graceful. Even practical 
 May yielded obedience to the mandate, and, lay- 
 ing her head against the bole of the tree, met the 
 bright eye of the mother robin peering over the 
 edge of her nest with what May chose to inter- 
 pret as a wink of intelligent amusement. 
 
 "She asked >me as plainly as dumb show could 
 ask, who would provide three meals a day for the 
 happy exclusives, and, when I alluded to bread* 
 fruit trees and beefsteak geraniums, wanted to 
 know where ovens and gridirons would come 
 from," said May afterward ; "That formed the 
 basis of my five-minute reverie." 
 
 My soul, to-day, 
 
 Is far away,, 
 Sailing the Vesvivian bay ; 
 
 My winged boat, 
 
 A bird afloat, 
 Swims 'round the purple peaks remote. 
 
 So runs the poem, between the lines of which 
 might be written the exultant, "Absent from the 
 body /" Hester's soul had the poet's power of 
 "drifting" into absolute idealization. She was 
 used to building with dream stuff. In the time 
 she had allotted, she lived out a lifetime, to 
 tell of which would require hours and many 
 pages. That she paid for the wide sweep into 
 the remote and the never-to-be, by reaction bit- 
 terer than death, never dissuaded her from other 
 voyages of the "winged boat."
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 8l 
 
 For perhaps sixty seconds Hetty, sitting upon 
 the turf by the recumbent Thor, and idly pulling 
 his shaggy hair, reflected regretfully upon this 
 certain reflex action ; then, as if uttered in her 
 ear, recurred the words: "Where we four might 
 paint, and talk, and live forever !" 
 
 "We four!" Involuntarily, her eye sped from 
 one to another of the group ; from May's placid 
 visage and smile upraised to the robin's nest, to 
 the face framed about by pale blue cushions 
 colorless as wax, the pain lines effaced by the 
 sweet exaltation oftenest seen upon the forehead 
 and mouth of a dead child consciousness, rising 
 into majesty, of having compassed all that is given 
 to the human creature to know, the full posses- 
 sion of a happy secret to be shared with none 
 who still bear the weight of mortality. Hetty's 
 heart slackened its beat while she gazed upon the 
 motionless features. Her "child" was, for the 
 time, rapt beyond her reach. Yet it was only 
 "make believe" after all, that snared her into 
 temporary bliss! 
 
 Before the pang of the thought got firm hold 
 of her she met March Gilchrist's eyes, full, and 
 fixed upon hers. 
 
 He lay along the grass, supporting himself on 
 his left elbow, his cheek upon his hand, the other 
 hand, still holding the big brush, had fallen across 
 Thor's back. His eyes were startled, as by an 
 unexpected revelation, and as her glance touched
 
 82 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 them, sudden, glad light leaped from depth to 
 surface. He would not release her regard not 
 even when the glow that succeeded the numbness 
 of the thrill stole from limb to limb, and suffused 
 her face, and all the forceful maiden nature 
 battled with the magnetic compulsion. The 
 sough of the spring breeze in the flower-laden 
 branches, likened by Hester to the whispering 
 surf upon island sands; the humming bees and 
 twittering birds ; the sun-warmed scent of apple 
 blooms and white clover and the sweetbrier grow- 
 ing just without the canopy of the king apple 
 tree ; the faint flush of light strained through 
 locked masses of blossoms, were, for those 
 supreme moments, all the world except that this 
 man God's most glorious creation spoke to 
 her, although his lips were moveless, and that the 
 stir of a new and divine life within her heart 
 replied. 
 
 "I am sure the time must be up!" said May 
 yawningly. "Poor Hester is fast asleep, and my 
 tongue aches with holding it so long." 
 
 Hester unclosed her eyes slowly, smiled 
 dreamily, and essayed no denial. March was on 
 his knees, collecting brushes and tubes into his 
 color [box. Hetty was folding a rug so much 
 too heavy for her wrists that May sprang to seize 
 the other end. 
 
 "Why are you chilly? Your fingers are like 
 ice!" she exclaimed, as their hands met. "And
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 83 
 
 how you shiver! I am afraid we have been self- 
 ish in keeping you out of doors so long!" 
 
 The ague shook the mirth out of the nervous 
 laugh with which Hetty answered : 
 
 "Now that the strain of the week's suspense 
 and sittings is over, and the result of our joint 
 labors is a pronounced success, I am a little tired. 
 The spring is a trifle crude as yet, too," she sub- 
 joined, speaking more glibly than usual. "By 
 the time the sun reaches the tops of the trees, we 
 begin to feel the dew fall. Hester, we must go 
 in!" 
 
 March took the handle of the wheeled chair 
 from her. "That is too heavy for you on the 
 thick grass. May, will you abide by the stuff 
 until I come back?" 
 
 On every other afternoon, Homer had come 
 down at five o'clock to roll the carriage up the 
 ascent. Hester lay among the pillows, her eyes 
 again shut, and the reflection of the happy secret 
 upon her face. Hetty walked mutely beside her. 
 
 March liked the fine reserve that kept her 
 silent and forbade her to risk another encounter 
 of glances. She was all womanly, refined in 
 every instinct. Crushing the young grasses with 
 foot and wheel, and bowing under the stooping 
 branches, they made their way to the gate in the 
 parsonage fence. Homer shambled hurriedly 
 down the walk to meet them. 
 
 "Now" he stammered, laying hold of the
 
 84 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 propeller of the chair "I'd 'a bin yere sooner, 
 but I had to go downtown on an arrant " 
 
 "That's all right !" said March good-naturedly. 
 "I was happy to bring Miss Wayt up the hill. 
 Good-by, Queen Mab ! May I have the honor of 
 taking you to my home studio to see the picture 
 when it is varnished and framed?" 
 
 She replied by a gentle inclination of the head, 
 and the same joyous ghost of a smile. She was 
 like one lost in a dream, so deep and delicious 
 that he will not move or speak for fear of awaken- 
 ing. 
 
 March raised his hat and stood aside to let the 
 carriage pass. As Hetty would have followed, his 
 offered hand barred the way. 
 
 "One moment, please!" he sajd, in grave sim- 
 plicity. "I have to thank you for some very 
 happy hours. May I, also, thank you for the 
 hope of many more? I should be sorry if our 
 acquaintanceship were to fall to the level of social 
 conventionality. We have always been intimate 
 with our pastor's family, and mean, unless forbid- 
 den, to remain true to time-honored precedent." 
 
 If he had alarmed her just now, he would prove 
 that he was no love-smitten boy, but a purpose- 
 ful man, who understood himself and was obedient 
 to law and order. Hetty gathered herself to- 
 gether to emulate his tranquillity. 
 
 "I especially want to thank you, out of her 
 hearing, for the great kindness you and your sis-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 85 
 
 ter have showed to my dear little invalid. She 
 will never forget it, nor shall I. It has been the 
 happiest week of her life. I think but for your 
 offer to lend her books, and Miss Gilchrist's 
 promise to keep on with her painting lessons, that 
 the end of our sittings would be a serious afflic- 
 tion to her. Please say this from me to Miss Gil- 
 christ, also. Good-evening!" 
 
 He ran lightly back to May and "the stuff." 
 He had not obtained permission to call, but 
 neither was it refused. He liked dignity in a 
 woman. As he phrased it, "it furred the peach 
 and dusted the plum." He was entirely willing 
 to do all the wooing. 
 
 May innocently applied the last touch to his 
 unruffled spirit in their family confabulation in 
 the library that evening. 
 
 "That Hetty Ailing is one of the most delight- 
 ful girls I ever met !" she asseverated emphatic- 
 ally. 
 
 "In what respect?" inquired her judicial parent. 
 
 "She has individuality and of the best sort. 
 She is intelligent, frank, spirited, and with these 
 sterling qualities, as gentle as a saint with poor 
 little Hester, who must be a great care to one 
 so young as Hetty. I mean to do all I can to 
 brighten the monotonous existence the two girls 
 must lead. From all I can gather without asking 
 impertinent questions, they are thrown almost 
 entirely upon one another for entertainment and
 
 86 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 happiness. It is an oddly assorted household, 
 taken as a whole." 
 
 "Talking of originality," observed March after 
 a meditative puff or two, "you have it in the 
 niece. It is fearfully sad that such a mind should 
 be crowded into the body of a dwarf. She dotes 
 upon books. If you will look up a dozen or so 
 that you think she or Miss Ailing would enjoy, 
 I will take them over to-morrow." 
 
 His mother's attitude changed slightly, al- 
 though her face was unaltered. She seemed to 
 hold her breath to listen, her whole inner being 
 to quicken into intensity of interest. March, 
 stretched luxuriously upon the rug, in his usual 
 post-prandial attitude, felt her sigh. 
 
 "Do I tire you, mother, dear?" he asked. 
 
 "Never, my boy!" 
 
 Nor ever would, although within the hour and 
 with a throe that tested her reserves of fortitude, 
 she had surrendered the first place in his heart. 
 The blow was unexpected. The orchard paint- 
 ings and her children's interest in them had 
 seemed entirely professional to her. March had 
 sketched dozens of girls, and fallen in love with 
 none of them. With all his warmth of heart and 
 ready sensibilities, he was not susceptible to femi- 
 nine charms. As a boy, he became enamored of 
 art too early to have other flames. Perhaps, with 
 fatuity common to mothers, she reasoned that 
 with such a home as his he was not likely to be
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 87 
 
 tempted by visions of domestic bliss under a vine 
 and fig tree yet to be planted. It is a grievous 
 problem to the maternal intellect why men who 
 have the best mothers and sisters living and eager 
 to spoil them with much serving, should be the 
 earliest to marry out of certainty into hazardous 
 uncertainty. 
 
 When the judge had gone to a political meet- 
 ing, and May to entertain visitors in the drawing 
 room, Mrs. Gilchrist divined the purport of the 
 impending communication. Her fair hand grew 
 clammy in toying with the short chestnut curls; 
 in the silence through which she could hear the 
 tinkle of the fountain on the lawn, she wet her 
 dry lips that they might not be unready with lov- 
 ing rejoinder to what her idol was preparing to 
 say. She knew March too well to expect con- 
 ventional preamble. He was always direct and 
 genuine. She did not start when he spoke at 
 length. 
 
 "Mamma, darling." 
 
 "Yes, my son." 
 
 "It has come to me at last, and in earnest." 
 
 "I surmised as much." It was plain to see 
 where he got his dislike of circuitous methods. 
 "Is it Mrs. Wayt's sister?" 
 
 "It is Hetty Ailing. She is a true, noble 
 woman. I shall try to win her love. Should I 
 succeed, you will love her for my sake, will you 
 not ?"
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 "You know that I will. But this is sudden. 
 You have known her less than a fortnight. And, 
 dear, it is out of the fullness of my love that I 
 speak I am afraid that the family is a peculiar 
 one. Be prudent, my son. You are young, and 
 life is long. I cannot bear that you should make 
 a mistake here. Should this young girl be all 
 that you think even all that I hope to find in 
 her it is best not to force her decision. Give 
 her time to study you. Take time, and make 
 opportunities to study her. I ask it because you 
 bear the names of two honorable men your 
 father and mine and because it would break 
 your mother's heart to see her only boy un- 
 happy." 
 
 He drew her hand to his lips the high-bred 
 hand that would always be beautiful and held it 
 there for a moment. She had his pledge. 
 
 Hetty had followed Hester into the house. It 
 was half-past five, and there were strawberries to 
 be capped for the half-past six dinner. A parish- 
 ioner had left a generous supply of Southern ber- 
 ries at the door while the girls were out, and had 
 taken Mrs. Wayt and her little daughters to drive. 
 Aunt and niece sat down at a table drawn before 
 the dining-room window and fell to work. Hes- 
 ter's high chair brought her tiny, dexterous fin- 
 gers to a level with Hetty's. The task went 
 forward with silent rapidity, and neither noted 
 the direction of her companion's eyes. Hetty
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 89 
 
 seemed to her dazed self to bear about with her 
 the charmed atmosphere of the nook under the 
 king apple tree. 
 
 The mingled hum of bees and sighing wind and 
 bird-note sounded in her ears like the confused 
 song of a seashell. Now and then, a ray from 
 hazel eyes flashed athwart her sight. Brain and 
 heart were in a tumult that terrified her into 
 questioning her identity. The "winged boat"of 
 fancy was a novel craft to our woman of affairs. 
 As novel was the self-absorption that made her 
 unobservant of Hester's brilliant eyes and musing 
 smile. As the dainty fingers, just reddened on 
 the tips by the fruit, picked off and cast aside the 
 green "caps," Hester's regards were fixed upon 
 the Anak of the orchard, and Hetty's strayed con- 
 tinually to the same point. Both looked over 
 and beyond a figure creeping on all-fours down 
 the central alley of the broad, shallow garden, 
 occasionally crouching low, as if to crop the grass 
 of the borders. 
 
 Perry, studying his Latin grammar in his 
 mother's chamber above, awoke the taciturn 
 dreamers by a shout : 
 
 "Hello, Tony! what are you doing there?" 
 He turned his head, not his body, to reply : 
 "Now jes' lookin' for somethin' I dropped." 
 "You'll drop yourself some day if you don't 
 watch out !" 
 
 Hester's unmusical cackle broke forth.
 
 9 MR. JVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 "Does he look more like a praying mantis or 
 Nebuchadnezzar?" she said to her co-worker. 
 "He reminds me of a funny thing I heard a man 
 say when I was a child of a picture in my cate- 
 chism of Nebuchadnezzar feeding in the pasture 
 with a herd of cows. He said it was 'a fine study 
 of comparative anatomy.' The advantage would 
 be on the side of the cows if Tony were to take 
 the field." 
 
 Hetty could not but laugh with her in looking 
 at the grotesque object. 
 
 "A short sight is a real affliction poor fellow ! 
 It is to be hoped that he has 'dropped' nothing 
 valuable. I will take the bowl and 'caps' into the 
 kitchen when I have laid you down upon the 
 lounge. Your poor back must ache by this time." 
 
 She lingered a few minutes in the kitchen to 
 make sure that everything was in train for dinner. 
 Her practical knowledge of all departments of 
 housewifery had already gained for her Mary Ann's 
 profound respect. The cook recommended by 
 Mrs. Gilchrist was a tidy body, a capital worker, 
 and, as she vaunted herself, "one as took an 
 intrust in any family she lived in." 
 
 "I ast that pore innocent feller if there was any 
 parsley in the gairdin," she chuckled to Hetty, 
 "an* he said he'd fetch me a bunch to gairnish 
 me dishes. But I've niver laid eyes onto him 
 since. I mistrust he don't know one yarb from 
 another. Is he 'all there,' d'ye think, mem?"
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 91 
 
 "He is not quick, but he is not an idiot, by 
 any means," returned his patroness. "He is a 
 faithful, honest fellow, always thankful for a kind 
 word, very industrious, and perfectly truthful. 
 We think a great deal of Homer. I saw him in 
 the garden just now, looking for the parsley. I 
 will find him and send him in with it. Don't 
 sugar the berries ; we do that on the table. Keep 
 them in a cool place until they are wanted for 
 dessert." 
 
 She strolled down the garden walk, singing 
 low to herself the catching tune to which she had 
 set the words the Gilchrists had overheard the 
 Sunday night of their first call: 
 
 O Life and Love ! O happy throng 
 Of thoughts whose only speech is song. 
 O heart of man ! canst thou not be 
 Blithe as the air is, and as free ? 
 
 Homer had vanished from the main alley that 
 led directly to the orchard, yet she walked on 
 down the whole length of it. Blazing tulips had 
 supplanted faded hyacinths; the faint green 
 globes of snowball bushes were bleaching hourly 
 in May sunshine and breeze; the lilac hedge, lin- 
 ing the post-and-board fence at the bottom of the 
 parsonage lot, was set thick with purple and 
 mauve and white spikes. 
 
 "Such a dear, old-fashioned garden!" Hetty 
 said, half aloud. "It reminds me of the one we
 
 92 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 had at home !" Leaning upon the orchard gate 
 she abandoned herself to reverie. The robins' 
 whistle in the apple tree was low and tender; 
 fleecy clouds, drifting toward the west, began to 
 blush on the sunward side, the blending odors of 
 a thousand flowers hung in the air. The word 
 "home" took thought back thoughts of the only 
 one she had ever had, and the mother whose 
 death lost it to her. Since then she had stood 
 alone, and helped weaker people to stand. A 
 great longing for rest in a love she could claim 
 as all hers drove tears to her eyes. The longing 
 was not new, but the hope that softened it was. 
 Hitherto, it had been linked with her mother's 
 image only. She wanted her now, as much, and 
 more than ever before, but that she might sym- 
 pathize with what she began to comprehend 
 tremblingly. Her mother would enter into her 
 trembling and her joy. Especially if she had 
 seen what Hetty never could describe a look 
 the memory of which renewed the shy, delicious 
 shame expressed in the blush March had pitied, 
 while rejoicing in the sight of it. 
 
 Such a boundless, beautiful world opened to 
 her while she stood there, looking down the blos- 
 soming vistas of the orchard solitary, yet com- 
 forted ! She would give rein to imagination for 
 that little while. It could harm no one, even if it 
 were all a chimera that would not outlast blossom- 
 time. And must it be that ? What had glori-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 93 
 
 fied other desolate women's lives might bless 
 hers. Spring comes to every year, however long 
 and cruel may have been the winter. Recalling 
 March's prophecy of future association, she dared 
 dwell upon visions of his visits, of the pleasant 
 familiar talks that would make them better 
 acquainted ; of the books they would read and 
 discuss; of the pictures he would paint, with her 
 looking on. 
 
 "I am not beautiful or accomplished," she said 
 humbly. "But I would make myself more 
 worthy of him. I am young and apt. I would 
 make no mistakes that could mortify him. He 
 should never be ashamed of me, and, oh !" she 
 stretched her arms involuntarily, as if to draw the 
 unseen nearer to her heart "how faithfully I 
 would serve him, forever and forever." 
 
 The flight of fancy had indeed been fast and 
 far! 
 
 The tinkle of the dinner bell in Mary Ann's 
 vigorous hand ended the fond foolishness 
 abruptly. It was the careful housewife who 
 asked herself with a guilty start: "What has be- 
 come of Homer and the parsley?" 
 
 Her first step in returning was upon something 
 hard. She picked it up. 
 
 Homer met his young mistress at the back 
 door. His weak, furtive eyes were uneasy before 
 she accosted him. At her incisive tone the red
 
 94 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 rims closed entirely over them, his hands, grimy 
 with groping in gravel and turf, fumbled with 
 one another, and his loose jaw dangled. 
 
 "Homer, you said this afternoon that you had 
 been out to do an errand. Do not leave the 
 place again without letting me know where you 
 are going, and for what." 
 
 "Now," he began wretchedly, "you wasn't at 
 home, 'n I thought " 
 
 "I forbid you to think!. I will do the thinking 
 for this family. You knew where to find me. If 
 you had not, you ought to have waited until I 
 got back. I mean what I say !" 
 
 He shifted miserably from one foot to the 
 other, and, as she passed him, cleared his dry 
 throat. 
 
 "Now, 'spose Mrs. Wayt was to send me out 
 in a hurry?" 
 
 "Tell her that you have my orders." 
 
 "Now " 
 
 She looked over her shoulder at him, impatient 
 and contemptuous. He had never seen her so 
 angry with him before. He plucked at the bat- 
 tered brim of an old military cap clutched in one 
 hand. He had found it in the garret, and be- 
 lieved that it became him rarely. 
 
 "I was 'bout to say as I hed los' what I 
 hed " 
 
 "I found it. Not another word! There is no 
 excuse for you !"
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 MR. WAYT availed himself of an early oppor- 
 tunity to make known his intention to take no 
 vacation that year. He "doubted the expediency 
 of midsummer absences on the part of suburban 
 pastors." While many residents of Fairhill went 
 abroad and to fashionable resorts in America in 
 July and August, a respectable minority was con- 
 tent to remain at home, and some of the vacated 
 cottages and villas were taken by city people, to 
 whom the breezy heights and shaded lawns were 
 a blessed relief from miles of scorching stone and 
 brick. He "foresaw both foreign and domestic 
 missionary work in his own parish," he said to his 
 session in explaining his plans for the summer 
 campaign. 
 
 The resolution was politic and strengthened 
 his hold upon his new charge. Not to be out- 
 done in generosity, the people redoubled their 
 affectionate attentions to their spiritual leader. 
 Fruits, flowers, and all manner of table dainties 
 poured into the parsonage ; carriages came daily 
 to offer airings to Mrs. Wayt and the children, 
 and on the Fourth of July a pretty phaeton and 
 gentle horse were sent as " a gift to the mistress
 
 9<5 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 of the manse," from a dozen prominent parish- 
 ioners. 
 
 "Verily, my cup runneth over." 
 
 A real tear dropped upon Mr. Wayt's shirt 
 front as he uttered it falteringly on the afternoon 
 of the holiday. Yet he had been repeating the 
 words at seasonable intervals, and more or less 
 moistly, since the hour of the presentation. 
 
 The Gilchrists were upon the eastern veranda, 
 the embowering vines of which were beginning to 
 rustle in the sea breeze. All had arisen at the 
 pastor's appearance, and March set a chair for 
 him. 
 
 "I have thought, sometimes, that I had some 
 command of language," he continued unctuously. 
 "To-day I have no words save those laid to my 
 use by the Book of books 'My cup runneth 
 over.' It is not one of my foibles to expatiate 
 upon the better 'days that are no more.' The 
 trick is common and cheap. But to you, my 
 best friends, I may venture to confide that my 
 dear wife and I were brought up in what I have 
 since been disposed to characterize as 'mistaken 
 luxury.' Since the unselfish saint joined her 
 blameless lot with mine she has never had a car- 
 riage of her own until to-day. I can receive 
 favors done to myself with a manly show of grati- 
 tude. Appreciation of my wife makes a baby of 
 me." 
 
 "By this time he should be in his second child-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 97 
 
 hood, then, for everybody likes mamma," piped 
 a familiar voice from within the French window 
 of the library. Glancing around with a start that 
 was not theatrical, he espied his eldest born 
 established at her ease in a low chair. Her feet 
 were on a stool; she wore a white gown, and 
 May's white Chudda shawl covered her from the 
 waist downward; her hair was a mesh of gold 
 thread that drew to it all the light of the dying 
 day. May sat on a cushion in the window and 
 linked Hester in her comparative retirement with 
 the veranda group. 
 
 "Ah, little one, are you there?" said the fond 
 parent playfully. "I missed you from the dinner 
 table and might have guessed that you could be 
 nowhere but here." 
 
 Profound silence ensued, and lasted for a min- 
 ute. Hester shrank into herself with a blush 
 visible even in the shadowy interior. 
 
 March and May had gone through orchard 
 and gardens to fetch her an hour ago. Her 
 father had eaten his evening meal at the same 
 table with her. In the circumstances there was 
 nothing to say, a fact comprehended by all 
 except the unconscious offender. 
 
 "I think Mrs. Wayt will find her horse gentle," 
 said Judge Gilchrist, in formal civility too pal- 
 pable to his wife. 
 
 With intelligent apprehension of the truth, too 
 often overlooked, that confidence in the truth
 
 98 MR. WA Y7"S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 bearer must precede obedience to his message, 
 she desired that her husband and son should like 
 Mr. Wayt. To March she had confessed her fear 
 that some of the family were "peculiar," and he 
 might infer the inclusion of the nominal head 
 in the category. Further than this she would not 
 go. With pious haste she picked the fly out of 
 the ointment, and with holy duplicity beguiled 
 others into approval of the article that bore the 
 trade mark of "The Church." 
 
 Ah, the Church! in every age and, despite 
 lapses and shortcomings and stains, the custodian 
 of the Ark of God her debt to such devout and 
 loyal souls as this woman's will never be esti- 
 mated until the Master shall make acknowledg- 
 ment of it in the great day of reckoning. 
 
 When the judge's turn of the subject and the 
 "horsey" talk that followed granted his wife 
 leisure to reconsider the matter, she discovered 
 that there was no cause for discomfiture. Mr. 
 Wayt was absent-minded, as were all students 
 of deep things. Only, her husband was quick of 
 sight and wit, and neither March nor May had 
 much to say, of late, of the new preacher who 
 was doing such excellent work in the congrega- 
 tion. March went regularly to church and sat 
 beside his mother through prayer and hymn and 
 sermon, and afterward refrained from adverse 
 criticism. This may have been out of respect to 
 the girl he hoped to make his wife. Yet she had
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 99 
 
 dared fancy that the graver tenderness of his 
 behavior to herself and the unusual periods of 
 thoughtfulness that occurred in their conversa- 
 tions had to do with the dawning of spiritual life 
 in his soul. However much certain of Mr. Wayt's 
 mannerisms might offend her taste, there was no 
 question of his ability and eloquence. That these 
 might be the divinely appointed nets for the 
 ingathering into the Church of her best beloved 
 was a burden that weighted every petition. 
 
 March had not spoken openly of his love for 
 Hetty Ailing since the evening on which he first 
 avowed it to his mother, but, in her opinion, there 
 was nothing significant in this reserve. The Gil- 
 christs were delicate in their dealings with one 
 another, never asking inconvenient questions, or 
 pushing communication beyond the voluntary 
 stage. If May divined the drift of her brother's 
 affections, she did not intimate it by word or look. 
 When the fruit of confidence was ripe it would 
 be dropped into her lap. She did note what Mrs. 
 Gilchrist had not the opportunity of seeing how 
 seldom Hetty had leisure to receive March or his 
 sister. She was getting ready the wardrobe of 
 the twin boys, who were to go to boarding school 
 the 1st of October. Through Hester's talk May 
 had learned incidentally that the Wayts employed 
 neither dressmaker nor seamstress. 
 
 "Hetty is miraculously skillful with her 
 needle," was Hester's way of putting it, "and
 
 loo MR, WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 so swift that it would drive her wild to see her 
 work done by the 'young lady who goes out by 
 the day.' I work buttonholes and hem ruffles 
 and such like, and mamma gives her all the time 
 she can spare from baby and other things. But 
 our Hetty is the motor of the household machine. 
 I don't believe there is another like her in the 
 world. The mold in which she was cast was 
 broken." 
 
 She had said this in a chat held with her 
 favorite this evening while the others were en- 
 gaged with other themes outside of the window. 
 May encouraged her to go on by remarking: 
 
 "You love her as dearly as if she were really 
 your sister, don't you?" 
 
 '"As well!' The love I have for mother, sis- 
 ters, and brothers is a drop in the ocean compared 
 with what I feel for Hetty ! See here, Miss 
 May!" showing her perfectly formed hands. 
 "These were as helpless as my feet. Hetty 
 rubbed me, bathed me, flexed the muscles for an 
 hour every morning and an hour every night. 
 She tempted me to eat ; obliged me to take exer- 
 cise ; carried me up and down stairs, and sat with 
 me in her arms out of doors until she had saved 
 fifty dollars out of her allowance to have my 
 chair built. Hetty educated me made me over! 
 She is my brain, the blood of my heart I don't 
 believe I should have a soul but for Hetty!" 
 
 The warm water stood in May's eyes. But the
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. roi 
 
 weak voice, thrilling with excitement, reminded 
 her of the danger of an excess of feeling upon the 
 disjointed system. She spoke lightly: 
 
 "Oh, your father would have looked out for 
 your soul !" 
 
 " Would he ?" 
 
 The accent of intensest acrimony shocked the 
 listener, corroborated as it was by the bitterness 
 of scorn that wrung the small face. 
 
 In a second Hester caught herself up. 
 
 "They say that cobblers' wives go barefoot. 
 Ministers have so little time to spare for the souls 
 of their families that their children are paganed. 
 If it wasn't for their wives and their wives' sisters, 
 the forlorn creatures would not know who made 
 them." 
 
 It was a plausible evasion, but it did not efface 
 from May's mind the disdainful outburst and 
 the black look that went with it. Both seemed 
 so unnatural, even revolting, to a girl whose 
 father stood with her as the synonym for nobility 
 of manhood, that she could not get away from 
 the recollection for the rest of the evening. This 
 was before Mr. Wayt's arrival, and sharpened 
 May's appreciation of the little by-play between 
 Hester and her parent. 
 
 His departure at nine o'clock was succeeded by 
 Hester's at ten, and, as was their habit, March and 
 his sister took her home by the path across the 
 orchard. The night was sultry ; the moon lay
 
 102 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 
 
 languid under swathes of gray mist. She looked 
 warm, and the stars near her faint and tired. 
 Low down upon the horizon were flashes of purple 
 sheet lightning. The town had kept the Fourth 
 patriotically, and the odor of burned paper and 
 gunpowder tainted the stirless air. 
 
 "The grass is perfectly dry," said May, stop- 
 ping to lay her hand upon' the mown sward. 
 "That should be a sign of a shower." 
 
 "There is always rain on the night of the Fourth 
 of July," returned March abstractedly. 
 
 Hester said not a word. As she looked up at 
 the sick moon her eyes showed large and dark; 
 her face was corpselike in the wan radiance. 
 She was weary, and she had been indiscreet. She 
 could not sleep without confessing to Hetty her 
 lapse of temper and tongue, and Hetty had 
 enough to bear already. She had not been so 
 strong and bright as was her wont for a month 
 past. It might be only excessive drudgery over 
 sewing machine and household duties, but she 
 looked fagged and sad at times. The phaeton 
 and horse would benefit mamma and the chil- 
 dren when the vacant place beside the mistress 
 of the Manse was not occupied by their lord and 
 master. He got the lion's share of every luxury. 
 Poor Hester's conscience and heart were raw, and 
 the heat of the wounds inflamed her imagination. 
 The evening at the judge's had not rested her. 
 That was strange, or would have been had not the
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 103 
 
 long, black shadow of her father lain across the 
 memory of it. 
 
 The back door of the parsonage stood wide 
 open, and the house was so still that, as March 
 stooped to lift Hester from her carriage at the 
 foot of the steps, he caught the sound of what 
 was scarcely louder than an intermittent sigh in 
 the upper story, but continuous as a violent fit of 
 weeping. The arm that lay over his shoulder 
 twitched convulsively ; Hester shuddered sharply, 
 then laughed aloud : 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Gilchrist ! I thought I was falling! 
 It is too bad to put you to all this trouble. I 
 hope Tony hasn't blown himself up. He ought 
 to have come for me." 
 
 "Didn't I promise your mother to bring you 
 home safely?" said March reassuringly. And, as 
 they reached the hall "May I carry you up- 
 stairs?" 
 
 The offer seemed to terrify her. 
 
 "Oh, no, no! Just lay me on the settee there! 
 Somebody will be down directly. Don't trouble 
 yourself to bring the chair in. Tony will attend 
 to that. Thank you ! Good-night, Mr. Gilchrist ! 
 Good-night, Miss May!" 
 
 While she hurried all this out, a stumble on the 
 back stairs was the precursor of Homer's appear- 
 ance in the dim recesses of the hall. He alighted 
 at the bottom of the flight on all-fours, picked 
 himself up and shambled forward, one hand on
 
 104 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 his head, the other on his elbow, an imbecile grin 
 spreading his jaws. 
 
 "Now, I a'most broke me nake on them stairs !" 
 
 March had deposited Hester upon the hall 
 lounge, and although perceiving her anxiety to 
 get rid of him, hesitated to commit her to the 
 keeping of a man who was, apparently, but half 
 awake. 
 
 "Let me carry you up !" he insisted to Hester. 
 "He may fall again." 
 
 "Oh, Tony is all right!" in the same strained 
 key as before. "He never lets anything but him- 
 self drop." 
 
 A rustle and swift step sounded above stairs. 
 Someone ran down. It was Hetty. Her white 
 wrapper was begirt with a ribbon loosely knotted ; 
 her rust-brown hair was breaking from constraint 
 and tumbling upon her shoulders. 
 
 March's first pained thought was: "She knew 
 I would be in, yet did not mean to see me again 
 to-night !" 
 
 A second glance at the colorless face and wild 
 eyes awakened unselfish concern. 
 
 "What is the matter? Who is hurt?" she 
 queried anxiously. Hester's reply was a shriek 
 of laughter. 
 
 "Nothing! Nobody! Only Tony has broken 
 his neck again, and Mr. Gilchrist did not know 
 that it is an hourly occurrence in our family life, 
 so he insisted upon taking me upstairs himself."
 
 MR. WAYTS WIFE'S SISTER. 105 
 
 "Mr. Gilchrist is very kind!" Hetty's tone was 
 deadly mechanical; in speaking she looked at 
 nobody. "I sent Homer down when I heard you 
 coming. I am sorry he was not in time." 
 
 May had joined the group. 
 
 "I hope," she said in her cheery way, "that 
 none of the rest of your household have come to 
 grief to-day?" 
 
 Hetty turned to her with eyes that questioned 
 silently almost defiantly. 
 
 "I mean, of course, did the boys bring home 
 the proper quantum of eyes and fingers?" 
 
 "Yes! oh, yes! thank you! they went to bed 
 tired, but whole, I believe." 
 
 "That is fortunate, but remarkable for a Fourth 
 of July report," said March. "Come, May! 
 Good-night !" 
 
 He had seen, without comprehending, the in- 
 tense relief that flooded the girl's visage at his 
 sister's second sentence, also that she was fever- 
 ishly anxious to have them go. And the sound 
 above stairs, hushed by Hester's shrill tones was 
 it low, anguished weeping? The mourner was 
 not Hetty, yet her dry eyes were full of misery. 
 His big, soft heart ached with futile sympathy. 
 By what undiscovered track could he fare near 
 enough to her to make her conscious of this and 
 of a love the greatness of which ought to help her 
 bear her load of trouble? 
 
 "Hetty looks dreadfully!" broke out May at
 
 106 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 
 
 the garden gate. "She is worked and worried to 
 death ! I am amazed that Mrs. Wayt allows it. 
 To reduce a girl like that to the level of a house- 
 hold drudge is barbarous. She has no time for 
 society or recreation of any kind. It is toil, toil, 
 toil, from morning until night. Mary Ann the 
 cook mamma got for them says she 'never saw- 
 such another young lady for sweetness and kind- 
 ness to servants as Miss Hetty/ but that she 
 'carries all the house on them straight little shoul- 
 ders of hern.' Hester tells the same story in bet- 
 ter English." 
 
 She repeated what she had heard that evening. 
 
 March stopped to listen under the king apple 
 tree, where he had begun to love the subject of 
 the eulogy. While May declaimed he reached 
 up for a cluster of green apples and leaves and 
 pulled it to pieces, his face grave, his fingers 
 lingering. 
 
 "Heaven knows, May" she was not prepared 
 for the emotion with which it was uttered "that 
 I would risk my life to make hers happy. I 
 hoped once but you see for yourself how she 
 avoids me. I could fancy sometimes that she is 
 afraid of me !" 
 
 "Perhaps she is afraid of herself." 
 
 He looked up eagerly. 
 
 "Is that a chance remark? You women under- 
 stand one another. Have you seen any- 
 thing "
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 107 
 
 "Nothing I could or would repeat, my dear 
 boy ! But there is a mystery somewhere, and I 
 can't believe it is the phenomenon of such a sen- 
 sible girl's failure to appreciate my brother. May 
 I say something, March, dear?" 
 
 "Whatever you like after what has gone be- 
 fore r 
 
 "Maybe it ought not to have gone before or 
 after, either. For, brother, this is not just the 
 sort of connection that you should form. To 
 speak plainly, you might look higher. 'Strike 
 but hear!' Hetty is all that I have said, and 
 more. But there is a Bohemian flavor about the 
 household. We will whisper it even at half- 
 past ten o'clock at night, in the orchard and 
 never hint it to 'the people,' or to mamma ! They 
 are nomads from first to last why, I cannot say. 
 They have lived everywhere, and nowhere long. 
 Mrs. Wayt is a refined gentlewoman, but her eyes 
 are sad and anxious. You know how fond I am 
 of Hester, poor child ! Still a nameless some- 
 thing clings to them as a whole not quite a 
 taint, but a tang! Especially to Mr. Wayt. 
 There ! it is out ! Let us hope the apple trees 
 are discreet ! I distrust him, March ! He doesn't 
 ring true. He is always on pose. He is a sancti- 
 monious (which doesn't mean sanctified) self- 
 lover. Such men ought to remain celibate." 
 
 March tried to laugh, but not successfully. 
 
 "I dissent from and agree to nothing you say.
 
 io8 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 But " He waited so long that May finished 
 
 the sentence for him. 
 
 "But you love Hetty?" 
 
 "Yes! She suits me, May! As no other 
 woman ever did. As no other woman ever will. 
 I have tried to reason myself out of the persua- 
 sion, but get deeper in. She suits me every fiber 
 and every impulse of my nature. I seem to have 
 known her forever and always to have missed 
 her." 
 
 With all her pride in her family and ambition 
 for her brother May had a romantic side to her 
 character. Had she liked Hetty less, she would 
 yet have pledged her support to the lover. She 
 told him this while they strolled homeward, and 
 then around and around the graveled drive in front 
 of the Gilchrist portico, and had, in return, the 
 full story of his passion. 
 
 "When I marry, my wife will have all there is 
 of me," he had said, long ago, to his sister. 
 
 He reminded her of it to-night. 
 
 "She is not a brilliant society woman. Not 
 beautiful, perhaps. I am not a competent judge 
 of that at this date. She has not the prestige of 
 wealth or station. But she is my counterpart." 
 
 He always returned to that. 
 
 When his sister had gone into the house he 
 tarried on the lawn with his cigar. What fresh- 
 ness the fierce sun had left to the air was all to 
 be found out of doors. As the gray swathes con-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 109 
 
 tinued to smother the light out of the moon the 
 heat became more oppressive. The gravel walks 
 were hot to his feet ; the bricks of the house 
 radiated caloric. With a half-laugh at the whim, 
 he entered the now silent and darkened dwelling, 
 sought and procured a carriage rug, and pulling 
 the door shut after him, whistled for Thor, and 
 retraced his steps to the orchard. He spread the 
 rug upon the grass kept cool by the down-leaning 
 branches of the arbor and cast himself upon it. 
 He meant to make a night of it. 
 
 "I have camped out, many a July night, in far 
 less luxurious quarters," he muttered. "And this 
 place is sacred." 
 
 When the mosquitoes began to hum in his ears, 
 he lighted another cigar. He was the more glad 
 to do it, as he fancied, once in a while, that the 
 young apples or the wilting leaves had a peculiar 
 and not pleasant odor, as of some gum or essence, 
 that hung long in the atmosphrere. He had 
 noticed it when he pulled down a branch to get 
 the spray he had torn apart, while May talked. 
 The air was full of foreign scents to-night, and 
 this might be an olfactory imagination. 
 
 As twelve o'clock struck from the nearest 
 church spire, he was staring into the formless 
 shadows overhead and living over the apple-blos- 
 som week, the symphony in pink and white. The 
 young robins were full fledged and had flitted 
 from the parent nest. The young hope, born of
 
 no MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 what stood with him for all the poetry of his six- 
 and-twenty years of life, spread strong wings to- 
 ward a future he was not to enjoy alone. 
 
 Thor was uneasy. He should have found his 
 share of the rug laid upon elastic turf as com- 
 fortable as the mat on the piazza floor, which was 
 his usual bed, yet he arose to his haunches, once 
 and again, and, although at his master's touch or 
 word, he lay down obediently, the outline of his 
 big head, as March could make it out in the 
 gloom, was alert. 
 
 "What is it, old boy?" said he presently. 
 "What is going on?" 
 
 Thor whined and beat the ground with his tail, 
 both tentatively, as asking information in return. 
 
 In raising his own head from the yielding and 
 soft rustling grasses, March became aware of a 
 sound, iterative and teasing, that vexed the lan- 
 guid night. It was like the ticking of a clock, or 
 of an uncommonly strenuous deathwatch. While 
 he listened it seemed to gather force and become 
 rhythmic. 
 
 "Click! click! clack! click! click! clack 1 
 clicketty click! clicketty, clicketty clack! click! 
 click! click! clicketty clack ! ting!" 
 
 Somebody was working a typewriter on this 
 stifling night, presumably by artificial light, in the 
 most aristocratic quarter of Fairhill. 
 
 Thor knew the incident to be unprecedented. 
 The rhythmic iteration made his master nervous;
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. Hi 
 
 the sharp warning of the bell at the end of 
 each line pierced his ear like the touch of a fine 
 wire. 
 
 He sat up and looked about him. 
 
 An aperture in the foliage let through a single 
 ray of light. It came from the direction of the 
 parsonage. 
 
 "Tony's pet hallucination is of a wandering 
 light in the garden and orchard, a sort of 'Will 
 o' the Wisp' affair, which it is his duty to look 
 after," Hester had said that evening. "He rushes 
 downstairs at all hours of the evening to see who 
 is carrying it. I told him last night that burglars 
 were too clever to care to enter a clergyman's 
 house, but he cannot be convinced that some- 
 body, bent upon mischief, doesn't prowl about 
 the premises. He is half blind, you know, and 
 has but three-fourths of his wits within call." 
 
 Recollecting this, March arose cautiously, whis- 
 pered to Thor to "trail," and stole noiselessly up 
 the easy grade. 
 
 The light was in the wing of the parsonage and 
 shone from the wide window of the pastor's study 
 on the first floor. The shutters were open; a 
 wire screen excluded insects, and just within this 
 sat a woman at a typewriter Hetty! 
 
 Across the shallow garden he could see that 
 her hair was combed to the crown of her head for 
 coolness, and coiled loosely there. Now thai he 
 was nearer to the house, he distinguished another
 
 H2 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 voice, also a woman's, dictating, or reading, as the 
 flying fingers manipulated the keys. Drawing 
 out his repeater, he struck it. Half-past twelve ! 
 
 "I have been sorely interrupted in my pulpit 
 preparation this week," Mr. Wayt had informed 
 Mrs. Gilchrist, on taking leave that night. "I 
 fear the sunlight will extinguish my midnight 
 argand burner. 'The labor we delight in physicks 
 pain/ and, with me, takes the place of slumber, 
 meat, and drink." 
 
 Impressed by an undefined sense of trouble. 
 March stood, his hand upon the gate, almost 
 decided to go up to the house and inquire if 
 aught were amiss. While he cast about in his 
 mind for some form of words that might account 
 for his intrusion, Mrs. Wayt's figure came forward, 
 and offered, with one hand, a glass of water to 
 her sister. In the other she held a paper. With- 
 out taking her fingers from the typewriter Hetty 
 raised her head, Mrs. Wayt put the glass to her 
 lips, and, while she drank, dictated a sentence 
 from the sheet in her hand. In the breezeless 
 hush of the July night a clause was audible to the 
 spectator. 
 
 "Who has not heard the story of the drummer 
 boy of Gettysburg?" 
 
 "Click-click-clack! Click-click-clack!" recom- 
 menced the noisy rattle. 
 
 While Hetty's fingers flew her sister fanned 
 her gently, but the eyes of one were riveted to
 
 MK. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 113 
 
 the machine, those of the other never left the 
 paper in her hand. 
 
 March went back to his orchard camp, Thor at 
 his heels.' 
 
 It was close cloudy ; the purple play of light- 
 ning was whitening and concentrating in less fre- 
 quent lines and lances. When these came, it 
 could be seen that thunderheads were lifting 
 themselves in the west. But the night remained 
 windless, and the iterative click still teased the 
 ears of the watcher. It was an odd vigil, even 
 for an anxious lover, to lie there, gazing into the 
 black abysses of shade, seeing naught except by 
 livid flashes that left deeper blackness, and know- 
 ing whose vital forces were expended in the un- 
 seasonable toil. 
 
 What could it mean? Did the overladen girl 
 add copying for pay to the list of her labors? 
 And could the sister who seemed to love her, aid 
 and abet the suicidal work? Where was Mr. 
 Wayt? The play of questions took the measure 
 and beat of the type keys, until he was wild with 
 speculation and hearkening. 
 
 At half-past two the rattle ceased suddenly. 
 Almost beside himself with nervous restlessness, 
 he sprang up and looked through the gap in the 
 boughs. The light went out, and, at the same 
 instant, the delayed storm burst in roar and rain.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 SUNDAY, July 5, dawned gloriously, clear 
 and fresh after the thunder-storm, to which Fair- 
 hill people still refer pridefully, as the most vio- 
 lent known in thirty years. The gunpowder and 
 Chinese paper taint was swept and washed out of 
 the world. 
 
 Mrs. Wayt, holding Fanny by the hand, and 
 followed decorously by the twin boys in their 
 Sunday clothes and churchward-bound behavior, 
 emerged from her gate as the Gilchrists gained it. 
 In the white light of the forenoon, the eyes of 
 the pastor's wife showed faded ; groups of fine 
 wrinkles were at the corners, and bistre shadows 
 under them. Yet she announced vivaciously 
 that all were in their usual health at home, except 
 for Mr. Wayt's headache, and nobody had been 
 hurt yesterday. 
 
 "For which we should return special thanks, 
 public and private," she went on to say, walking, 
 with her little girl, abreast with Judge and Mrs. 
 Gilchrist, the boys falling back with the young 
 people. "At least, those of us who are the 
 mothers of American boys. I can breathe with 
 tolerable freedom now until the next Fourth of
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 115 
 
 July. What a fearful storm we had last night ! 
 My baby was awakened by it and wanted to 
 know if it was 'torpetoes or firetrackers?' Yet, 
 since we owe our beautiful Sabbath to the 
 thunder and rain, we may be thankful for it; as 
 for many other things that seem grievous in the 
 endurance." 
 
 "I hope Mr. Wayt's headache is not in conse- 
 quence of having sat up until daybreak, as he 
 threatened to do," the judge said, in a genial 
 voice that reached his son's ears. 
 
 March listened breathlessly for the reply. 
 
 "I think not. I did not ask him this morning 
 at what time he left his study. He is not 
 inclined to be communicative with regard to his 
 sins of commission in that respect, but I suspect 
 he is an incorrigible offender. He attributes his 
 headache verbally to the extraordinary heat 
 of yesterday. We all suffered from it, more or 
 less, and it increased rather than diminished, 
 after sunset." 
 
 "Is Mr. Wayt well enough to take the service 
 this morning?" 
 
 "Oh, yes!" quickly emphatical. "It would be 
 a severe indisposition indeed that would keep him 
 out of the pulpit. Both his parents suffered 
 intensely from nervous and sick headaches, so he 
 could hardly hope to escape. I have observed 
 that people who are subject to constitutional 
 attacks of this kind, are seldom ill in any other
 
 n6 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 
 
 way, particularly if the headaches are hereditary. 
 How do you account for this, Judge Gilchrist? 
 Or, perhaps, you doubt the statement itself." 
 
 March did not trouble his brains with his 
 father's reply. The volubility of one whose dis- 
 course was generally distinctively refined and 
 moderate in tone and terms would of itself have 
 challenged attention. But what was her object 
 in saying that she had not inquired at what hour 
 her husband left his study last night? Since 
 she and her sister were in occupation of the room 
 from midnight probably before that hour until 
 two in the morning, she certainly knew that he 
 was not there and almost as surely where he was 
 and how engaged during those hours. Where 
 was the need of duplicity in the circumstances? 
 Was she committed to uphold the professional 
 fiction, which her husband circulated vauntingly, 
 that his best pulpit preparation must be done 
 when honest people are asleep in their beds that 
 the beaten oil of the sanctuary must flow through 
 lamp-wick or gas-burners? What end was sub- 
 served by supererogatory diplomacy and subter- 
 fuge? 
 
 "How are the two Hesters to-day, Mrs. Wayt?" 
 asked May, from the side of her puzzled brother. 
 
 "Hester is rather languid. The heat again !" 
 
 She looked over her shoulder to say it, and 
 they could see how entirely the freshness had 
 gone from eyes and complexion. Her very hair
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. n? 
 
 looked bleached and dry. "The weather will 
 excuse every mishap and misdemeanor until the 
 dog days are over. Hetty stayed at home to 
 watch over her. It is a source of regret to Mr. 
 Wayt and myself" comprehensively to the four 
 Gilchrists "that my sister is so often debarred 
 the privileges of the sanctuary in consequence of 
 Hester's dependence upon her." 
 
 "I have remarked that she is frequently absent 
 from church," Mrs. Gilchrist answered. 
 
 Her dry tone annoyed her son. Yet how could 
 she, bred in luxury and living in affluence, enter 
 into the exigencies of a position which combined 
 the offices of nurse, companion, housewife, seam- 
 stress, mother, and bread-winner? 
 
 Mrs. Wayt took alarm. 
 
 "Poor child ! she hardly calls herself a church- 
 goer at all. But it is not her fault. She thinks, 
 and with reason, that it is more important for me 
 to attend service regularly for the sake of the 
 example, you understand and we cannot leave 
 our dear, helpless child with the children or ser- 
 vants. She gets no Sabbath except as my sister 
 gives it to her. I am anxious that the true state 
 of the case should be understood by the church 
 people. Hetty would grieve to think that her 
 enforced absences are a stumbling block." 
 
 Her solicitude was genuine and obvious. Judge 
 Gilchrist offered an assuasive : 
 
 "We must have a telephone wire run from the
 
 Il8 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 pulpit to Miss Hester's room. I have known of 
 such things." 
 
 "I don't believe that Hester would care to keep 
 her room Sunday mornings then !" whispered 
 Perry, r enfant terrible of the Wayt family. "She 
 says family prayers are all she can stand." 
 
 March, the recipient of the saucy "aside," cast 
 a warning look at the telltale. Inwardly he was 
 amused by the unlucky revelation. Spoiled child 
 as Hester was, she had marvelously keen percep- 
 tions and shrewd judgment. She saw through 
 the jugglery that deceived the mass of Mr. Wayt's 
 followers, and rated correctly the worth of his 
 capital. 
 
 He juggled rarely to-day. Even his voice par- 
 took of the spread-eagle element which interfused 
 Divine services as conducted by the popular 
 preacher. The church was full to the doors, 
 many of the audience being strangers and sight- 
 seers. The number of "transients" increased 
 weekly. 
 
 "He is like fly-paper," Hester had said, this 
 very Sunday, as the skirts of his well-fitting coat, 
 clerically cut and closely buttoned, cleared the 
 front door. "Out of the many that swarm and 
 buzz about him, some are sure to stick that is, 
 take pews! That is the test of spiritual hus- 
 bandry, Hetty! I believe I'll be an infidel!" 
 
 "Don't be utterly absurd !" answered her aunt 
 in a spiritless way. "I haven't the energy to
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 119 
 
 argue, or even scold. 'Let God be true, and 
 every man a liar.' God forgive me, but I am 
 ready, sometimes, to say that all men are ! But 
 I can't let Him go, dear!" 
 
 Mr. Wayt gave out the opening hymn in tones 
 that would have been clarion, but for an occa- 
 sional break into falsetto that brought to March's 
 irreverent mind the wheezing drone of a bagpipe. 
 
 We are living, we are dwelling. 
 
 In a grand and awful time ; 
 
 In an age on ages telling, 
 
 To be living is sublime. 
 
 Hark ! the waking up of nations, 
 
 Gog and Magog to the fray ! 
 
 Hark ! what soundeth ? 'Tis creation 
 
 Groaning for its latter day ! 
 
 His text was, as was his custom, startlingly 
 peculiar: 
 
 "'Only the stump of Dagon was left to him" 
 
 It was a political discourse, after the manner of 
 a majority of discourses which are miscalled 
 "National." Government jobbery, nepotism, and 
 chicanery; close corporations, railway monopo- 
 lies, municipal contracts each had its castiga- 
 tion ; at each was hurled the prophecy of the day 
 of doom when head and palms would be sundered 
 from the fishy trunk, and evil in every form be 
 dominated by God's truth marching on. 
 
 March listened for a while, then reverted to 
 matters of more nearly personal interest. Last
 
 120 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 night's incident had left a most disagreeable im- 
 pression on his mind, which was confirmed by 
 Mrs. Wayt's demeanor. May's assertion of the 
 Bohemian flavor recurred to him more than once. 
 No ! the specious advocate of public reforms and 
 private probity did not "ring true." And protest 
 as Hester might, with all the passion of a forceful 
 nature, against her father's double ways, he was 
 her father, and the ruler of his household. His 
 wife, it was plain, believed in and imitated him. 
 
 Gazing at the pale, large-featured face of the 
 orator, now alive with his theme, and glancing 
 from this to the refined, faded lineaments of her 
 whose meek eyes were raised to it from the pas- 
 tor's pew, he was distrustful of both. He wished 
 Hetty were not Mr. Wayt's wife's sister, or that 
 he could marry her out of hand, and get his 
 brother-in-law, once removed, a call to Alaska! 
 Her, he never doubted. Their acquaintance had 
 been brief, and scanty opportunities of improving 
 it had been vouchsafed to him of late; yet she 
 had fastened herself too firmly upon affection and 
 esteem to admit of the approach of disparaging 
 suspicion. She might be a slave to her sister and 
 her sister's children. She could never be made a 
 tool for the furtherance of unworthy ends. She 
 would not have said: "I did not inquire at what 
 hour Mr. Wayt left his study last night !" If she 
 spoke, it would be to tell the truth. 
 
 At this point an idea entered his brain, carry-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 1 21 
 
 ing a flood of light with it. Mrs. Wayt was an 
 author one of the many ministers' wives who 
 eke out insufficient salaries by writing for Sunday- 
 school and church papers! It was a matter of 
 moment perhaps of ten dollars to get off a 
 MS. by a given time, and Hetty had taken it 
 down in typewriting from her dictation and the 
 rough draught. Of a certainty, here was the 
 solution of the mysterious vigil, and of Mrs. 
 Wayt's equivocation ! She looked like a woman 
 who would write over the signature of "Aunt 
 Huldah" in the Children's Column, or "Theresa 
 Trefoil" in the Woman's Work-table, and dread 
 lest her identity with these worthies should be 
 suspected by her husband's people, or by even 
 "dear Percy" himself. 
 
 March experienced a blessed letting-down of 
 the whole system a surcease from worrying 
 thought, so sudden that a deep sigh escaped him 
 that made his mother glance askance at him. 
 Instead of admiring the brave industry of the true 
 wife he had suffered a whimsical prejudice to 
 poison his mind against her. He despised him- 
 self as a midnight spy and gossip hunter, in the 
 recollection of the orchard vigil. The patient, 
 unseasonable toil of the sisters became sublime. 
 
 Who has not heard the story of the drummer 
 boy of Gettysburg?" thundered the preacher, 
 raising eagle eyes from the manuscript laid be- 
 tween the Bible leaves.
 
 122 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S StSTER. 
 
 March jumped as if the fulmination were chain- 
 shot. Mrs. Gilchrist, looking full at him, saw his 
 color flicker violently, his fingers clinch hard upon 
 the palms. Then he became so ghastly that she 
 whispered : 
 
 "Are you ill?" 
 
 " A sharp pain in my side! It will be gone in 
 a moment," he whispered back, his lips contract- 
 ing into a smile. Rather a sword in his heart. 
 The light within him was darkness. How foolish 
 not to have solved the mean riddle at a glance ! 
 Mr. Wayt's sensational sermons were composed 
 by his clever wife, and transcribed by her as clever 
 sister! Here was the secret of the sense of un- 
 reality and distrust that had haunted him in this 
 man's presence from the beginning of their 
 acquaintanceship. The specious divine was a 
 fraud out and out, and through and through a 
 cheap cheat. No wonder now, at the swift itiner- 
 ancy of his ministry ! His talk of midnight study 
 was a lie, his pretense of scholarship a trick so 
 flimsy that a child should have seen through it. 
 He had gone to bed the evening before, and 
 taken his rest in sleep, while his accomplices got 
 up to order the patriotic pyrotechnics for the 
 next day. 
 
 No wonder that Mrs. Wayt's eyes were furtive 
 and anxious, that there were crow's feet in the 
 corners, and bistre rings about them after that 
 July night's work !
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 123 
 
 No wonder that the less hardened and less 
 culpable sister-in-law shunned church services ! 
 
 The sword was double-edged, and dug and 
 turned in his heart. For the girl who lent aid, 
 willing or reluctant, to the deliberate deception 
 practiced in the Name which is above all other 
 names, had a face as clear as the sun, and eyes 
 honest as Heaven, and he loved her ! 
 
 The main body of the audience could not with- 
 draw their eyes from the narrator of the telling 
 anecdote of the drummer-boy of Gettysburg. 
 The story was new to all there, although he had 
 assumed their familiarity with it. It was graphic ; 
 it was pathetic to heart-break ; it thrilled and 
 glowed and coruscated with self-devotion and 
 patriotism ; it was an inimitable illustration of the 
 point just made by the orator, who was carried 
 clear out of himself by the theme. And not one 
 person there not even March Gilchrist, fiercely 
 distrustful of the man and all his works sus- 
 pected that it was an original incident, home- 
 grown, homespun, and home-woven. Write it not 
 down as a sin against the popular pastor of the 
 Fairhill First Church that the Gettysburg hero 
 was a twenty-four-year-old child of the speaker's 
 brain. If the Mill of the Press, and the Foundry 
 of Tradition cannot turn out illustrations numer- 
 ous and pat enough to suit every subject and 
 time, private enterprise must supply personal 
 demand.
 
 124 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 " I think young Gilchrist was ill in church to- 
 day," observed Mr. Wayt to his wife that after- 
 noon, as she fed him with the dainty repast he 
 could not go to the table to eat. 
 
 He lay on the settee in the wide, cool hall, 
 supported by linen-covered cushions. She had 
 brought him, as a persuasive first course, a cup of 
 delicious bouillon, ice-cold, and administered it to 
 him, spoonful by spoonful. 
 
 " He changed color, and seemed to be in great 
 pain for an instant," he continued, after another 
 sip. " His mother looked very uneasy, and ap- 
 parently advised him to go out. I judged from 
 his fluctuations of color that it was vertigo or a 
 severe pain in the head. He would not leave 
 until the services were over. I have few more 
 attentive hearers than March." Another sip. 
 " If I should be the means of bringing him into 
 the Church, it would be a happy day for his pious 
 mother. Should my headache abate in the course 
 of an hour or so, I will look in and inquire how 
 he is. It would only be courteous and neigh- 
 borly." 
 
 In the adjoining dining room, the door of which 
 the draught had opened a few inches, the family 
 circle of the solicitous pastor heard every word of 
 the communication, although his accents were 
 subdued by pain. 
 
 Sharp-eared-and-eyed Perry winked at Hetty. 
 
 " He won't find Mr. March Gilchrist," he
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 125 
 
 mouthed in a fashion invented by himself, to con- 
 vey pert speeches only to the person for whom 
 they were invented. " He went to New York on 
 the five o'clock train. I saw him. He said he 
 was going to dine with a friend. I heard him. A 
 man asked him. Another slice of beef, please, 
 Hetty ! Rare, and a bit of fat ! Some gravy on 
 my potatoes, too ! " 
 
 Hetty had shunned the orchard since the day 
 of the last sitting. Seated behind the shutters of 
 her chamber-window, she had seen, almost every 
 day, Thor bound across the grass in pursuit of a 
 figure partially hidden by the lower branches. 
 Since March frequented the spot, it was no resort 
 for her. She had no time for play, she told 
 Hester, gently, when she pleaded for a return to 
 the pleasant lounging and talk " under green- 
 apple boughs." Homer could draw the carriage 
 down the garden-walk and through the gate and 
 leave the cripple there with books and color 
 box, whenever she wanted to go. Hester often 
 brought back stones of chats and readings and 
 painting lessons with the brother or sister some- 
 times with both. Occasionally, March came to 
 the parsonage with a message from his sister to 
 the effect that she had taken Hester home with 
 her for the day or evening, and would return her 
 in good order. He was apt to insist upon leav- 
 ing the message with Hetty, if Mary Ann or one 
 of the children answered his ring. Mr. Wayt's
 
 126 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 
 
 wife's sister would obey the summons in person, 
 but she did not invite the bearer in. 
 
 She ran down in her simple morning gown, or 
 almost as plain afternoon dress, without waiting 
 to remove her sewing apron, heard what he had 
 to say gravely, and replied civilly, as might a ser- 
 vant or governess. And day by day, he marked 
 the lessening round of cheek and chin, and the 
 deepening of the plait between the brows. She 
 could not know that he went away, each time 
 pitying and loving her the more, and furious at 
 the cruelty of the demands upon her time and 
 strength. She could not have altered her 
 behavior, unless to grow more formal, had she 
 divined all. 
 
 But for the orchard outings Hester would have 
 had but a dull summer of it. As it was, it was 
 the happiest of her life. She actually gained 
 flesh, and her cheeks had the delicate flush of a 
 sweet-pea blossom. She mellowed and mollified 
 in the intercourse with the sound, bright natures 
 of her new friends. Prosperity was teaching her 
 unselfishness. 
 
 Hetty had a proof of this after the Sunday 
 dinner was eaten, and there still remained a long 
 hour of sunful daylight. 
 
 " I have a charming book which Miss May lent 
 me yesterday," she said, as her custodian inquired 
 what she should do for her entertainment. " And 
 now that mamma has set the children to study-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 127 
 
 ing their Sunday-school lessons for next week, 
 you ought to have a breathing spell, my poor 
 dear. You are bleaching too fast to please me. 
 You can't plead ' work to do ' for once." 
 
 Hetty yielded the more, it would seem, be- 
 cause she had not the strength to resist love 
 pleadings than from any desire for the " outing" 
 recommended by Hester. Taking shawl and 
 cushion with her, she passed down the garden 
 alley to the gate. There was a broad track 
 through the orchard, worn by the wheeled chair 
 and Hester's attendants. It led straight to the 
 king apple tree. From this bourne another track, 
 not so distinctly marked, diverged to the white 
 picket fence shutting in the Gilchrist garden. 
 Hetty's feet had never trodden this, she reflected 
 with a pang, after she had settled herself against 
 the brown trunk. It was most probable that she 
 never would. 
 
 Her one little dream was dead, and she was 
 too practical a business woman to resuscitate it. 
 Her consistent plan of avoiding March Gilchrist 
 and abjuring the painful sweet of association with 
 his sister was adopted before she returned to the 
 house from her ineffectual quest" for Homer and 
 the parsley. She was filled with wonder, in look- 
 ing back to the time was it three minutes, or 
 thirty? she had wasted, leaning on the gate, 
 enveloped in lilac perfume as in a viewless mantle, 
 and daring to feel as other and unexceptional
 
 128 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 girls feel that she could have forgotten herself 
 so utterly. She said " so shamelessly." 
 
 " The worm on the earth may look up to the 
 star," if it fancies that method of spending an 
 ignoble life, but star-gazing and presumptous 
 longing for a million centuries would bring planets 
 and worms no nearer together. Hetty was very 
 humble in imagining the figure. Some people 
 must live on the shady side of the street, where 
 rents are low, and green mold gathers upon 
 stones, and snails crawl in areas. If the wretches 
 who pune and pale in the malaria-breeding damps 
 would not go mad, they must not look too often 
 across the way where flowers and people bloom. 
 If they do, they must support the consequences. 
 
 This misguided girl had looked. She was now 
 suffering. That she merited what she had to 
 bear did not make the pain less. 
 
 Unwittingly she had spread her shawl where 
 March had laid his rug last night. The rough 
 bark of the tree-bole hurt her presently. Her 
 gown was thin, and her flesh less firm than it had 
 been six weeks ago. She slid down upon the 
 shawl, her head on the cushion, and reached out, 
 in idle misery, to pick up some withered leaves 
 and small, unripe apples scattered on the grass. 
 March had dropped them while hearkening to 
 his sister's criticism of the Bohemian household. 
 She was as idly and as miserably tearing apart 
 the leaves toughened by the heat of the day,
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 129 
 
 when she heard a joyous rush behind her and 
 felt the panting of hot breath upon her neck, and 
 Thor was kissing her face and licking her hands. 
 She sprang to her feet and cast a wild glance 
 along the path and under the trees. There was 
 no one in sight. The grounds were peremptorily 
 posted, and no vagrant foot ever crossed them. 
 She took in the situation at once. March had 
 gone to New York in the five o'clock train ; the 
 dog, wandering aimlessly about and missing his 
 master, had espied her, and accepted her as a sub- 
 stitute. She knelt down and clasped her arms 
 about his head, laid her cheek to his burly 
 muzzle. 
 
 " O Thor ! Thor ! you would help me if you 
 could." Just as she had fondled him in those 
 far-away, blissful days. Her hand was tangled in 
 his coat when, looking across his huge bulk, she 
 had met March Gilchrist's eyes. True eyes and 
 bonny and true, which must never read her soul 
 again. 
 
 " Thor! dear Thor ! '' She cried it out in a pas- 
 sion of tears. 
 
 The faithful fellow moaned a little in sympathy. 
 The more eloquent than human longing to com- 
 fort the sorrowing, never seen except in a dog's 
 eyes, filled and rounded his. 
 
 " I wouldn't cry if I could help it, dear," said 
 Hetty, her arch smile striking through the rain. 
 "And nobody else should see me shed a tear.
 
 130 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 You are my only confidant ; and I do believe 
 you understand a little." 
 
 He was not an indifferent consoler, it appeared, 
 for in fifteen minutes both of them were asleep, 
 their heads upon the same pillow. 
 
 The sunset sea breeze rustled the stooping 
 boughs. Arrows of greenish gold, tipped with 
 fire, were shot at random between the leaves at 
 the sleeping pair. Hetty was very pale, but the 
 grieving droop of the facial lines, the slight full- 
 ness of the lower lip, and the slow curve of the 
 arm thrown above her head made her seem like 
 a child. She looked what she was, fairly tired 
 out weariness so intense that it would have 
 chased slumber from the eyelids of an older 
 sufferer. She had cried herself to sleep, Thor's 
 presence giving the sense of protecting compan- 
 ionship the child feels in his mother's nearness. 
 The cool breath of the approaching twilight, the 
 grateful shade, and Sabbath stillness did the rest. 
 
 Now and then a long, broken sigh heaved her 
 chest, and ran through her body. There was the 
 glisten of tiny crystals upon her eyelashes. Once 
 she sobbed aloud, and Thor moved uneasily and 
 sighed sympathetically. By and by he began to 
 beat his tail gently against the turf, his beautiful 
 eyes gleamed glad and wistful, but he did not 
 offer to lift his head. Hetty patted it in her 
 sleep, and left her hand there. 
 
 She and Thor were walking over a wilderness
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 131 
 
 prairie. The coarse grass flaunted up to her chin, 
 and she would have lost the dog had she not 
 wound her fingers in his hair. Such a long, tire- 
 some, toilsome way it was, and the grass so stiff 
 and strong ! Sometimes it knotted about her 
 ankles ; sometimes the beards struck like whips 
 across her face. A bitter wind was blowing, and 
 stung her eyes to watering. In passing it lashed 
 the grass into surges that boomed like the sea. 
 
 Miles and miles away an orange sunset burned 
 luridly upon the horizon, and right between her 
 and it was a floating figure, moving majestically 
 onward. A mantle blew back in the bitter wind 
 until she could almost touch the hem ; a confus- 
 ing flutter of drapery masked the head and 
 shoulders ; the face was set steadfastly westward 
 and kept away from her. At long intervals a 
 hand was tossed clear of the white foldings and 
 beckoned her to follow. 
 
 " And follow I will ! " she said, between her set 
 teeth, to herself and to Thor, " I will follow until 
 I overtake him or die ! " 
 
 And all the while the blasting wind hissed in 
 her hair and howled in the pampas grasses, and 
 her feet were sore and bleeding ; her limbs failed 
 under her ; her tongue clave to the roof of her 
 mouth with dryness ; her heart beat faint 
 
 Hark ! At the upward fling of her leader's arm 
 music rained down from heaven, and the earth 
 made joyous response ; strong, exultant strains,
 
 132 MR. IVAYTS WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 like an organ peal, and such vibrant melodious 
 chimes as Bunyan heard when all the bells of the 
 holy city rang together for joy. The majestic, 
 floating figure turned to lean toward her with 
 outstretched arms, and eyes that gazed into hers 
 as she had vowed they should never look again. 
 
 "Oh! I knew it must be you!" She said it 
 aloud, in her rapturous dream. "It could be 
 nobody else ! Thank God ! Thank God ! " 
 
 Thor bounded from under her hand. . . 
 
 March Gilchrist's New York friend was a 
 bachelor cousin, who was always delighted to 
 have " a good fellow " drop in upon him on Sun- 
 day evening. March, in the uneasy wretchedness 
 that beset him, honestly intended to visit him 
 when he took the five o'clock train. He wanted 
 to get away from the place for a few hours, he 
 said ; away from tormenting associations and pos- 
 sible catechists, and think calmly of the next step 
 to be taken. By the time he reached Jersey City 
 he had discovered that he was trying to get away 
 from himself and not from his home ; moreover, 
 that he wanted neither dinner nor the society of 
 the genial celibate. He stepped from the train, 
 turned into the station restaurant, sat down at the 
 table he had occupied on the day he landed from 
 the City of Rome and missed the noon train, and 
 ordered at random something to eat. 
 
 The long table built in the middle of the room 
 was surrounded by a party of men and women.
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 133 
 
 The men wore full black beards and a great deal 
 of waistcoat, crossed by gold ropes. The women 
 had round, black eyes, high-bridged noses and 
 pronounced complexions. March tried not to see 
 them, and tried to eat what was set before him. 
 It made him sick to observe that Hetty's place 
 was filled by an overblown young lady whose 
 bang made a definite downward peak between 
 her black brows, and who had ten rings on the 
 left hand and five on the right. 
 
 He caught the 6.30 train back to Fairhill. He 
 had made up his sensible mind to talk over his 
 family to a project marvelously well developed 
 when one remembers that the inception was not 
 an hour old when he swung himself off upon the 
 platform of the Fairhill station. He would set 
 out next week for the Adironacks, set up a forest 
 studio, and begin "serious work.' The phrase 
 jumped with his mood. Nothing else would 
 draw the inflammation out of the wound. He 
 meant to bear up like a man under the blow he 
 had received, to forget disappointment in labor 
 for a worthy end ; love, in ambition. 
 
 He took the orchard in his walk home from the 
 station. It was quite out of his way, and he was 
 not guilty of the weakness of denying this. He 
 went there deliberately and with purpose, vault- 
 ing the fence from the quiet street at the foot of 
 the hill, as he had done on that memorable Sun- 
 day when the orchards were "all a-flutter with
 
 134 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 pink." One more look at the nook under green 
 apple-boughs would be a sad satisfaction, and the 
 contrast between what he had hoped and what he 
 knew to be rock-bottomed reality, would be a 
 salutary tonic. One look he must have a look 
 that should be farewell to folly and regret. 
 
 While still twenty yards away from the arbor 
 he espied something that looked like a mass of 
 white drapery lying upon the turf. He stood just 
 without the drooping boughs fencing the sleeper 
 about, his face framed in an opening of the foliage, 
 as Hetty, aroused by Thor's bound from her side, 
 raised her eyelids and closed them again with a 
 smile of dreamy delight upon eyes swimming in 
 luminous tears. 
 
 "I thought it was you!" she repeated in a 
 thrilling whisper, and again, and more drowsily 
 " Thank God ! " 
 
 The church bells, chiming the half-hour notice 
 of evening service, went on with the music of her 
 dream. 
 
 Thor, enacting a second time the role of Deus 
 ex machina, thought this an auspicious moment 
 for thrusting his cold nose against her cheek. 
 
 With a stifled scream she attempted to rise, and 
 catching her foot in the shawl, would have fallen 
 had not March rushed forward to her help. 
 Having taken her hands to restore her to her bal- 
 ance, he continued to hold them. 
 
 She struggled to free them but feebly. Sur-
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 135 
 
 prise and confusion had robbed her of strength 
 and self-possession. 
 
 " I thought they said that is, Perry saw you 
 take the train for New York," she managed to 
 articulate. 
 
 " Hetty !" imploringly, while the eyes she had 
 seen in her vision overflowed hers with loving 
 light "why do you shun me so persistently? 
 Are you determined never to hear how dear you 
 are to me ? "
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THIS, then, was the outcome of March Gilchrist's 
 iron-clad resolve to forget in serious work one who 
 could never make him or his family happy ! 
 
 Verily, the ways and variations of a man in love 
 are past finding out by ordinary means and every- 
 day reasoning. Our sensible swain could only 
 plead with his sister in defense of his fast grown 
 passion, that the girl " suited him." Having de- 
 cided within eight hours that no alliance could be 
 more unsuitable than one with Mr. Wayt's wife's 
 sister, he had cast himself headforemost into the 
 thick of impassioned declaration of a devotion 
 the many waters of doubt could not drown, or 
 the fires of opposition destroy. 
 
 Dizzied and overwhelmed as she was by his 
 vehemence, Hetty was the first to regain the firm 
 ground of reason. He had seated her, with gentle 
 respect, upon the cushion that had pillowed her 
 head, and dropping on one knee, the " true, bonny 
 eyes " alight with eagerness, poured out the story 
 whose outlines we know. Earnestness took the 
 tinge of happiness as he was suffered to proceed ; 
 the deep tones shook under the weight of emo- 
 tion. Not until she made a resolute effort to dis- 
 136
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 13? 
 
 engage her hands, and he saw the burning blushes 
 fade into dusky pallor and her eyes grow set and 
 troubled, did his heart begin to sink. Then the 
 gallant, knightly soul forbore importunity that 
 might be persecution. If his suit distressed her 
 for any cause whatsoever, he would await her dis- 
 position to hearken to the rest. 
 
 Releasing her, he arose and stood a little space 
 away, respectfully attending upon her pleasure. 
 
 " I did not mean to impose all this upon re- 
 luctant ears," he said, when she did not speak. 
 Her face was averted, her hands pressed hard 
 together. The rust-brown bandeaux, ruffled by 
 the pressure of her head upon the pillow, gleamed 
 in the dying sunlight like a nimbus. The slight, 
 girlish figure was not a Madonna's, It might be 
 a Mary at the tomb in Bethany before the " Come 
 forth ! " was spoken. 
 
 " A word from you will send me away," con- 
 tinued March, with manly dignity, " if you wish 
 to dismiss me and the subject forever. I cannot 
 stop loving you, but I can promise not to annoy 
 you by telling you of a love you cannot receive." 
 
 " Annoy me ! " repeated the poor, stiff lips. 
 "Annoy me! You must surely know, Mr. Gil- 
 christ, that that is not a word to be used by you 
 to me ! " 
 
 " No ? " coming a step nearer, eye kindling and 
 voice softening. " You will let me try to over- 
 come indifference, then will you not ? "
 
 138 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 In the depth of her distress she appreciated 
 the adroit twist he gave her answer. The corners 
 of the pale mouth stirred. Her strength was 
 slipping from her. She must be brief and 
 decisive. 
 
 " If that were all " looking courageously into 
 the glowing eyes " I would give a very different 
 answer from the one you must accept without 
 questioning. I know that I can never give any 
 other, unprepared though I was for what you 
 have said. There are reasons not immediately 
 connected with myself why I ought not to think 
 for a moment of the matter you were speaking 
 of. You have paid me the greatest compliment 
 a man can offer a woman. But while my sister 
 and the children need me as they do now I must 
 not think of leaving them, and I see no prospect 
 of their needing me less for years and years to 
 come. My sister opened her house to me when 
 I was orphaned and homeless. I owe her more 
 than I could make you understand. She is 
 peculiarly dependent upon me. Hester could 
 not do without me. You have seen that. I can- 
 not bear to think how she would suffer if I were 
 to go away." 
 
 In her desire to deal gently and fairly with him 
 she had made a concession fatal to the integrity 
 of her cause. He laid hold of it at once. 
 
 " Mrs. Wayt has a husband ; the children have 
 a father. He is a man in the prime of life, whose
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 139 
 
 talents'are approved by the Church. He is pop- 
 ular, and in the receipt of a good salary. Fairhill 
 will probably remain Hester's home for many 
 years to come. If this is all that separates us 
 why, my darling " 
 
 The strangest expression flashed over her 
 face a wild ecstasy of joy that gave place, the 
 next second, to anguish as wild. She put her 
 hands over the tell-tale face, and bent her fore- 
 head upon her knees. 
 
 " Don't ! oh, don't ! " she moaned. " This is 
 too hard ! too cruel ! If you could only know 
 all, you would not urge me ! I did not think you 
 could be so unkind ! " 
 
 " Unkind ? To you, Hetty ? " 
 
 " No ! no ! " moved to tears by the hurt tone, 
 and hurrying over the words. " You could never 
 be that to anybody much less I cannot say 
 what I would ! " 
 
 March knelt down by her, and raised her head 
 with tender authority she could not resist. He 
 wiped the tears from her face with his own hand- 
 kerchief ; smiled down into the wet eyes. Loving 
 intimacy with his mother and sister had taught 
 him wondrously winsome ways. 
 
 " Listen to me, dear ! " as he would address a 
 grieving child. " Sometime, when you are quite 
 willing to talk freely to me of this awful 'all/ I 
 will prove to you how chimerical it is. Until 
 then, nothing you can say or do can shake my
 
 140 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 purpose of making you my wife, in God's own 
 good time. We were made for one another, 
 Hetty ! I have known that this great while. I 
 am positive I could convince you of it, if you 
 would give me a chance." 
 
 She arose nervously, her hands chafing one 
 another in an action that was like wringing them 
 in impatience or anguish. 
 
 " I must go, Mr. Gilchrist ! It is wrong to 
 allow you to say all this. Then, too, Hester will 
 be uneasy and need me." 
 
 "Let me go with you and explain why you 
 have outstayed your time," March suggested, 
 demurely. " We could not have a more sympa- 
 thetic confidante than Hester. And I must tell 
 somebody." 
 
 She looked frightened. 
 
 " There is nothing to tell ! There never can be. 
 Cannot you see ? haven't I convinced you of 
 this?" 
 
 " Not in the least. Until you can lay your 
 hand upon your heart the heart you and I know 
 to be so true to itself and to others and say, with 
 the lips that cannot frame a lie ' March Gilchrist, 
 I can never love you in any circumstances ! ' I 
 shall not see this other ' never ' you articulate so 
 fiercely. If you want to get rid of me instantly, 
 and for all time, look at me and say it now 
 Hetty ! " 
 
 His lingering enunciation of the name she had
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 14* 
 
 never thought beautiful before, would of itself 
 have deprived her of the power to obey. She 
 stood dumb, with drooping head and cheeks burn- 
 ing red as the sunset, her figure half turned away, 
 a lovely study of maiden confusion, had the spec- 
 tator been cool enough to note artistic effects. 
 
 Chivalric compassion restrained all indication 
 of the triumph a lover must feel in such a posi- 
 tion. 
 
 " I will not detain you, if you must go in," he 
 said, in a voice that was gentlest music to her ear. 
 " Forgive me for keeping you so long. I know 
 how conscientious you are, and how necessary 
 you are to Hester. We understand one another. 
 I will be very patient, dear, and considerate of 
 those whose claims are older than mine. But 
 there is one relation that outranks all others in 
 the sight of God and man. That relation you 
 hold to me. Don't interrupt me, love ! Nothing 
 can alter the fact. Give me those ! " as she 
 stooped blindly for shawl and cushion. " It is 
 my duty to relieve you of all burdens which you 
 will permit me to carry for you. You would 
 rather not have me go to the house with you?" 
 interpreting her gesture and look. " Only to the 
 gate, then ? You see how reasonable I can be 
 when possibilities are demanded." 
 
 He made a remark upon the agreeable change 
 in the weather within the last twenty-four hours, 
 and upon the sweet repose of the Sabbath after
 
 142 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 the tumult of the National holiday, as they walked 
 on, side by side. At the gate he stayed her with 
 his frank, pleasant laugh. 
 
 " I have a confession I don't mind making now. 
 At half-past twelve o'clock last night I stood on 
 this spot watching you. Thor and I were camp- 
 ing out in the orchard. It was too hot to go into 
 the house. I heard a queer clicking, and saw a 
 light in this direction, and came to look after 
 Homer's Jack-o'-lantern. Instead, I saw you at 
 the study window, busy oh! how wickedly 
 busy with the typewriter ! " 
 
 He stopped abruptly, for the face into which he 
 smiled was bloodless, the eyes aghast. She made 
 a movement as if to grasp the shawl and pillow 
 and rush away then her forehead fell upon the 
 hand that clutched at the pickets for steadiness. 
 
 " Are you angry ? " pleaded March, amazed and 
 humble. " If I had not loved you, I should not 
 have been here. Was it an impertinent in- 
 trusion ? " 
 
 " No ! And I am not angry only startled." 
 Her complexion was still ashy, and her tongue 
 formed the syllables carefully. " I can understand 
 that you must have thought strange of what you 
 saw. But I am used to typewriting. I earned 
 fifty dollars" with mingled pride and defiance 
 March thought engaging " last winter by copy- 
 ing law papers. And I told you everybody 
 must know how poor we are."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 143 
 
 "I know more -than that, dearest !" laying his 
 hand over her cold fingers. " I surmised when I 
 saw Mrs. Wayt dictating to you, what it meant." 
 
 She was all herself again. In defense of her 
 sister's secret, as he imagined when she began to 
 speak, she rallied her best forces. Her speech 
 was grave, dignified, and direct. 
 
 " I do not know what you surmised. The truth 
 is that Mr. Wayt was taken suddenly ill last night. 
 His sermon must be ready by this morning. 
 There was not time to get a substitute. So my 
 sister found his notes. They were very full. She 
 read them aloud to me. Nobody else can make 
 them out. I copied the sermon with the machine 
 from her dictation. You will understand that we 
 would not like to have this spoken of. Good- 
 evening ! " 
 
 She was beyond reach in a moment, in another 
 beyond call. 
 
 March went back to the sylvan retreat that 
 may be regarded as the stage set for the principal 
 scenes of our story. Step and heart were light, 
 and the same might be said of a brain that 
 whirled like a feather in a gale. While he had 
 been loath to admit the gravity of the misgivings 
 that had embittered the slow hours between 
 11:30 A.M. and 7 o'clock P. M. of that eventful 
 Sunday, he was keenly alive to the rapture 
 of their removal. What a boorish bat he had 
 been to suffer a suspicion of the lofty recti-
 
 144 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 tude of the noblest woman upon earth to 
 enter his mind ! How altogether simple and 
 convincing was her explanation of what should 
 have been no mystery to any honorable man ! 
 Yet he could not be ashamed, in the fullness of 
 his happiness. He called himself all the hard 
 names in his vocabulary with cheerful volubility, 
 and gloried in the lesson he had thus learned of 
 implicit trust in the girl he loved. No accumula- 
 tion of circumstantial evidence or even the wit- 
 ness of the eye should ever call up another 
 shadow of a shade of doubt. Among other 
 occasions for thankfulness was the recollection 
 that he had not let a lisp of what he had seen 
 last night and suspected this morning, escape him 
 in conversation with his mother and sister. He 
 found himself tracing, with a fine sense of the 
 drollery of the conceit, the analogy between pros- 
 trate Dagon, sans arms, legs, and head, and the sus- 
 picion which had menaced the destruction of his 
 happiness. Mutilated, prone, and harmless, it 
 lay on the threshold of the temple of love and 
 truth, ugly rubbish to be thrust forever out of 
 sight. 
 
 He had hardly noticed, in the ecstasy of relief, 
 Hetty's haste to be gone after she had explained 
 her nocturnal industry. He passed as lightly 
 over the incoherence that had replied to his 
 question when he could see her again. 
 
 " Give me time to think ! Not for a day or
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 145 
 
 two ! Not until you hear from me ! " she had said 
 just before reaching the gate. 
 
 He was shrewd enough to see how well taken 
 was his vantage ground. She had not demurred 
 at his stipulation. He was positive, in the 
 audacity of youth and passion, that she would 
 never utter the words he had dictated. The turf 
 under the tree was flattened by her reclining 
 form. He lay down upon it, his arms doubled 
 under his head for a pillow, Thor taking his place 
 beside him. The golden green changed into dull 
 ruddy light, this into purple ash, and this into 
 gray that was at first warm, then cold. The 
 second vesper bell had set the air to quivering 
 and sobbed musically into silence that embalmed 
 the memory of the music. Rapt in dreams, in 
 summer fragrance, and in tender dusks, the lover 
 lay until the stars twinkled through rifts in the 
 massed leaves. Now and then, the far-off roll of 
 an organ and the sweet hymning of accompany- 
 ing voices were borne across his reverie, as the 
 wanderer through the twilight of an August day 
 meets waves of warm, perfumed air, or currents 
 of balsamic odors floating from evergreen heights. 
 
 At nine o'clock the moon showed the edge of 
 a coy cheek above the horizon hills, and shortly 
 thereafter March heard the click of the garden 
 gate. Instinctively he put out his hand to keep 
 Thor quiet, an unwarrantable idea that Hetty 
 might revisit the spot darting through his mind.
 
 146 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 The shuffling of feet over the sward quieted his 
 leaping heart. In another minute he distin- 
 guished the outlines of a figure stealing across 
 the moonlit spaces separating black blotches of 
 shade. As it neared the covert he spoke quietly, 
 not to alarm the intruder. 
 
 " Good-evening, Homer." 
 
 " O Lord ! " The three-quarter-witted wight 
 bounded a foot from the ground, then collapsed 
 into a shaking huddle. 
 
 " It is I Mr. Gilchrist," March hastened to 
 add. " I am sorry I frightened you." 
 
 "Now I was jes a-lookin' fer a light I see 
 from the back porch down this 'ere way," uttered 
 Homer, in an agitated drawl. 
 
 March could see the coarse fingers rubbing 
 against the backs of his hands, and a ray of light 
 touched the pendulous jaw. 
 
 " It was the match I struck to light a cigar I 
 smoked a while ago," he said. " I dare say that 
 may account for the light you have seen at other 
 times." 
 
 " Ye-es, sir " dubiously. " I been saw the 
 light lots o' nights, when I aint spoke of it. 
 'Tain't like er sergar. It's like a lantern a-swing- 
 ing this er way " swaying one hand " I dumb 
 this tree one night, an' sot thar till nigh mornin', 
 a-waitin' an' a-watchin' fer it ter come again. 
 There's a man what tole me 'twas the devil 
 a-watchin' out for me."
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 147 
 
 " I am surprised you try to catch him. From 
 what I have heard, he is a slippery chap." 
 
 " No-ow I aint a-feerd on him fer myself. 
 Now, I'd be loath fer him to worry Miss Hetty." 
 
 "You are a good fellow, Homer! A brave 
 fellow ! " responded the listener, with sudden 
 energy. " When you do get on the track of the 
 light, let me know, and I'll lend a hand to nab 
 the devil." 
 
 " Ye-es, sir! Now, I've been a-turnin' over in 
 my mind what that man say to me. He's a man 
 as ought to know what he's talkin' about. He 
 t'reatened me orful a couple o' times, sence we 
 come to Fairhill. Sometimes I can't sleep fer 
 thinkin' 'bout it. ' You stay outen that orchard ! ' 
 he say. ' Ther' war a man murdered thar onct,' 
 he tell me, 'an' the devil is a-lookin' fer him. Ef 
 he come acrost you he'll ketch you by a mistake,' 
 he say. But then, there's Miss Hetty, you know, 
 Mr. Gilchris'! " 
 
 " What under heaven has she to do with your 
 man, or his devil, or the light ? Who is the man 
 who threatened you ? Does he live in Fairhill ? " 
 
 Homer plucked at his lower lip and glanced 
 apprehensively around. 
 
 " I dunno ! " he answered, in sullen evasion. 
 " I met him on the street one day. Two times I 
 come acrost him in the orchard. Onct he come 
 to the garding gate. That was the time he tell 
 me 'bout the murder an' the devil."
 
 148 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 " He is a cruel, rascally liar ! " cried March 
 indignantly. " And you don't know his name ? 
 What is he like ? Did you ever speak of this to 
 Miss Hetty?" 
 
 " No, sir. She got 'nough to fret her a'ready, 
 Miss Hetty has. I'm 'fraid for her 'bout the 
 man. She aint 'fraid o' nothin'. ' You do what I 
 tell you, Homer,' sez she, 'an' I'll stan* between 
 you an' harm,' she say. But she aint know 'bout 
 the devil. Nor I aint heerd o' the murder when 
 she tell me that. That mought make a dif- 
 rence." 
 
 " She is all right, all the same. She is always 
 right. Mind her, and you're sure to be safe. 
 When did you last see this man who is so well 
 acquainted with the devil ? " 
 
 An uneasy pause, during which Homer 
 cracked each one of the knuckle-joints in his left 
 hand. 
 
 " I dunno ! I don' jis reklec' ! You won't 
 mention him to Miss Hetty nor to nobody- 
 will you please not, Mr. Gilchris' ? He's an orful 
 man ! He'd get even with Miss Hetty, some way, 
 sure's you born, Mr. Gilchris'? ' Nurver you let 
 on a word to her! ' sez he to me ' or 'twill be 
 the wustest day she ever see,' he sez." 
 
 " Why, this is outrageous ! " ejaculated the 
 aroused listener. " Do you suppose I will allow 
 this sort of thing to go on ? I insist upon know- 
 ing who the wretch is ! He'll find himself behind
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 149 
 
 bars before he is a day older, if I get hold of 
 him." 
 
 " Now " resumed Homer, dazed and dull 
 " you'd better not meddle nor make with him. 
 Me'n' Miss Hetty, we could manage 'bout him, 
 but when he sot 'bout fetchin' the devil in that 
 aint a fa'r shake that aint ! I'll say that much, 
 ef I die fer it 'taint by no means 'fa'r nor 
 squar ' ! " 
 
 " Pshaw ! " March laughed in vexed amusement. 
 " Did you ever know the devil to do the fair and 
 square thing ? Or any of the devil's men ? 
 Why didn't you set Mr. Wayt after your friend ? 
 It's his trade to fight Old Nick, you know." 
 
 "Yes, sir. So I been heerd tell. What's 
 that ? " 
 
 It was the sound of the gate-latch falling into 
 the socket, and firm quick footsteps. 
 
 "OLord!" whispered Homer again. "Don't 
 let on as I've been here ! " 
 
 In a twinkling, he had gone up the tree like a 
 cat. 
 
 By the time March recognized the latest comer, 
 the rustling boughs were still. Thor growled 
 fiercely. His master advanced a step into the 
 moonlight. 
 
 " Be quiet ! " to the dog. " Good-evening, Mr. 
 Wayt ! The beauty of the night has tempted you 
 out, as well as myself." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Gilchrist ! " suave and stately as
 
 15 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 usual. " As you say, it is a glorious night. I 
 have been sitting for half an hour with your 
 respected parents. Seeing you change color sud- 
 denly during the morning service, and missing 
 you from church this afternoon, I feared lest you 
 had been taken ill, and so went over to inquire. 
 
 " Mrs. Gilchrist appeased my anxiety by saying 
 that yours was a passing indisposition. I was the 
 more solicitous because I have suffered all day 
 from the onslaught of my constitutional enemy, 
 ' the rash ' and crucial headache which my mother 
 gave me. It is more than malady. It is afflic- 
 tion ! requiring pagan fortitude and Christian 
 resignation. There is some occult connection 
 between it and the course of the natural sun in 
 the heavens. It seized me this morning with the 
 rising of the god of day and left me at the going 
 down of the same. Mrs. Wayt will have it that it 
 is the penalty for much study which, if not weari- 
 ness to the flesh, occasionally revenges itself in 
 neuralgic pangs. I know no fatigue while the 
 oracular rage of composition is upon me. Last 
 night \\. possessed me ! I wrote the entire sermon 
 to which you listened this morning between the 
 hours of half-past nine Saturday night and four 
 o'clock this morning. In all that time I did not 
 leave my desk. The thunder-storm wrought 
 strange, glorious excitement in my brain. It was 
 as if seven thunders uttered their voices to the 
 ears of my spirit."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 151 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Wayt prodded holes in the turf 
 with his cane while speaking, holding it in his 
 right hand almost at arm's length, in a straight 
 line from his body. His face showed chalky- 
 white in the moon rays, his brows and hair very 
 black ; his eyes glittered, the smile upon his thin, 
 wide-lipped mouth was apparent in the clearing 
 radiance. He was disposed to be affably loqua- 
 cious to the heir of a rich parishioner, and the pas- 
 tor's " influence with young men " was one of his 
 specialties. This important member of an im- 
 portant class did not interrupt him, and the intent 
 expression of his figure his back was to the 
 moon was pleasantly provocative to continued 
 eloquence. 
 
 " The Sabbath has been superb truly superb ! " 
 resumed the orator, pulling out the cane after an 
 unusual artesian feat in jabbing it into the earth. 
 " I could think of nothing as I looked out at day- 
 break upon the brightening face of nature but 
 Mrs. Barbauld's 'rose that's newly washed by the 
 shower.' My spirit put on wings to meet the 
 new morning. I said, aloud, in a sort of divine 
 transport : ' This is the day the Lord hath made. 
 Let us rejoice and be glad in it ! ' " 
 
 " Do you ever preach extemporaneously, Mr. 
 Wayt?" asked March. 
 
 The sentence passed his lips almost unawares. 
 In his perplexity and disdain, he spoke at random. 
 He could not stand here all night, the victim of
 
 I5 2 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 the modern Coleridge. He recollected, while the 
 flowing periods went over him, that the Rev. 
 Percy's admirers likened him to the long-winded 
 poet. The girl of his heart in esse and of his 
 home in posse might be Mr. Wayt's wife's sister, 
 but Mr. Wayt himself was an imposing liar and 
 hypocrite, who disgraced the coat on his back. 
 The sooner she was removed from his house the 
 better. He credited poor Tony with more sense 
 than he was reputed to possess, in that he 
 doubted, inferentially, his employer's powers as 
 an exorcist. 
 
 " Now and then, my dear sir, now and then ! 
 But I long ago arrived at the conclusion that 
 natural fluency is a lure to indolence. Whatever 
 is worth the hearing should be worth careful prep- 
 aration. The vice versa occurs to you, of course. 
 I would give my audience ripe matter, the slow 
 accretion of amber-clear thought, not the fervid 
 exudation of momentary excitement. Every line 
 of this morning's sermon was written out in full. 
 The reporter of a New York paper took it from 
 my hand as I descended from the pulpit. ' Mr. 
 Wayt ! ' he said, ' that discourse can be printed 
 without the alteration of a word. It is perfect ! ' " 
 
 The man's supreme egotism pushed March into 
 indiscretion, which he afterward considered dis- 
 honorable. 
 
 " You never use the typewriter, then ? " 
 
 " Occasionally," carelessly. " I might say,
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 153 
 
 semi-occasionally. But not when I am in the 
 Spirit as I reverently believe I was last night. 
 Mrs. Wayt is a deft operator on it. She learned 
 expressly to copy my sermons and lectures for 
 the press. What will not a good wife do for her 
 husband ?" 
 
 " What, indeed ? " assented March fervently. 
 
 He was thinking of the wifely equivocations to 
 which he had hearkened on the way to church, 
 and, with genuine satisfaction, how straight- 
 forward was Hetty's simple tale of the sermon- 
 writing episode. Again he resolved to tear her 
 out of this web of needless deceits at the earliest 
 possible moment. 
 
 He left the vicinity of the apple tree, partly to 
 shake off his companion, partly to allow Homer 
 opportunity to escape. Once he had his lips 
 open to intimate his presence in the orchard at 
 midnight, and that he had seen the light in the 
 study. The reverend humbug should be warned 
 of the danger of gratuitous and wholesale lying. 
 He withheld the caution. It was not his province 
 to reprove a man so much his senior, and he 
 added mentally such an old offender. 
 
 Mr. Wayt sauntered on with him to the* gate 
 opening into the Gilchrist shrubbery, bade him 
 " good-night," and marched back. March leaned 
 upon the fence, seeming to stare at the moon, 
 and enjoying a nightcap cigar, until the long, 
 black figure entered the parsonage garden. While
 
 154 MR WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 the young man lingered he saw Homer drop, 
 monkeylike, to the earth and skulk homeward, 
 keeping in the shadow when he could. 
 
 " I would sooner take the fool's chances of 
 evading the devil than his pompous and pious 
 master's ! " soliloquized Mrs. Gilchrist's son. 
 
 Hetty was dusting the big parlors next morn- 
 ing, and making ineffectual attempts to evolve 
 coziness out of carpeted space, when a cough at 
 the door attracted her notice. 
 
 Homer stood there, military cap in hand, and 
 wet up to the knees with dew. His love for 
 flowers was a passion, only surpassed by his 
 exquisite tenderness for dumb animals and chil- 
 dren. Hetty had said of her prot/gtf that he had 
 the soul of a painter-poet, but that the wires were 
 cut between spirit and speech. He had been on 
 his knees since there was light enough to show 
 the difference between weeds and precious plants, 
 cleaning out the garden borders. 
 
 " Now " (fumbling with his shabby headgear), 
 " I was wishful fer to speak with ye before enny- 
 body else came down. Leastways, Mary Ann, 
 she's in the kitchen, but don't count, bein' busy 
 an' out of the way." 
 
 Hetty smiled languidly. Her eyes were heavy- 
 lidded ; her motions slow for her. She had lain 
 all night, staring into the blackness above her, 
 now crying to a deaf heaven to show her a plain 
 path for her feet, now trembling with ecstatic
 
 MR. WAYTS WIPES SISTER. 155 
 
 anguish in the recollection of the interview 
 that opened a vista of Eden she yet dared not 
 enter. 
 
 " Come what may, he has called me darling ! " 
 she was thinking for the hundredth time, as the 
 interruption came. 
 
 "What is it, Homer? Are your flowers all 
 right ? " 
 
 He ventured, after a glance at his feet, to step 
 upon the unbroken breadths of Brussels. 
 
 "Now I was up a tree in the orchard las' 
 night. An' Mr. Gilchris' the young one and 
 Mr. Wayt, they were a-talkin' on the groun' under 
 the tree " 
 
 Hetty wheeled upon him with blazing eyes and 
 cheeks. 
 
 "You were in the orchard! In what tree? 
 When ? But no ! " Her excitement subsided as 
 quickly as it had arisen. " You were in the house 
 when I came in. Go on!" She drew a long 
 breath. 
 
 Homer twiddled his thumbs in the crown of 
 his cap. His speech could never be hurried. If 
 urged to talk fast, he was dumb. 
 
 " Now, I was up in that big tree where the pic- 
 ter was painted. Mr. Gilchris' the young Mr. 
 Gilchris' he war a-lyin' onto the grass when I 
 came along. 'Twar after you had gone upstairs 
 nigh onto ten o'clock, I guess, or may be nine 
 I aint certain. I'd saw the same light, an', for
 
 156 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 
 
 all them boys ken say, I've been saw it many a 
 time " 
 
 " Never mind the light." Hetty said it pa- 
 tiently. " Tell me how you happened to climb 
 the tree." 
 
 "Now, Mr. Gilchris' the young gentleman 
 he spoke very civil an' kind to me, an' we war 
 talkin' quite a spell, when I heerd Mr. Wayt 
 a-comin', an' I dumb the tree so's he wouldn't 
 see me, an' may be go fur me, you know. An' 
 while I war in the tree I heerd him a-tellin' Mr. 
 Gilchris' I meantersay the young Mr. Gilchris' 
 how he'd sot up 'tell daybreak, four o'clock Sat'- 
 day night, a figurin' onto his sermon what he 
 preached on Sunday " 
 
 "Homer!" 
 
 "Yes, ma'am! He war talkin' very high 
 Scotch, mos'ly like he does all times, 'specially to 
 comp'ny-folks, but I got the sense of that much. 
 He said as how he an' the thunder-storm they 
 figured up the sermon together, near's I could 
 make out. An' Mr. Gilchris' the young gentle- 
 man he said precious little an' Mr. Wayt, he 
 splurged out considerable 'bout seein' the sun rise 
 an' so forth, an' 'bout his headache comin' on an' 
 a-goin off with the sun. An' then the two of 
 'em walked off quite frien'ly, an' soon's as they 
 was out o' sight, I lighted out and come home." 
 
 Hetty was sitting upon the sofa, too sick and 
 weak to stand.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEJt. 15? 
 
 "Are you sure that you heard all this? Did 
 Mr. Gilchrist know you were in the tree?" 
 
 " Now he see me go up. I ast him not to let 
 on to him. But what I come to say war, 'taint 
 noways nor nurver safe to say what aint jes' true, 
 jes' for the sake of talkin' big, an' Mr. Wayt, bein' 
 a edicated man, he'd ought to be tole that. 
 'T'ould 'a' been better not to say nuthin' 'bout 
 Sat 'day night 'thout somebody ast h'm." 
 
 " There ! " His young mistress put out her 
 hand imperatively. " That will do. Don't speak 
 of this to anybody else. Go back to your work." 
 
 On their way to school, the twins left a thin 
 envelope at Judge Gilchrist 's door. It was 
 addressed to March. 
 
 " I have heard what was the substance of Mr. 
 Wayt's conversation with you last night. Know- 
 ing you as I do, I am sure, that in mercy to the 
 innocent, you will not let it go further. I recog- 
 nize in the incident one more added to the many 
 reasons why I can never be more than 
 
 " Your friend, 
 
 H. ALLING."
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 MARCH GILCHRIST'S name was brought up to 
 the sewing room at eleven o'clock Monday morn- 
 ing. Hetty was cutting out shirts for the twins 
 at a table of Homer's contrivance and manufac- 
 ture. Her face was flushed, perhaps with stooping 
 over the board, when she looked up. 
 
 " Please say that I am particularly engaged this 
 morning, Mary Ann, and beg to be excused." 
 
 "My dear!" expostulated Mrs. Wayt. "He 
 has probably called with a message from his 
 mother or sister." 
 
 " In that case ask him to leave it with you, 
 Mary Ann, unless you care to go down, Frances ? " 
 
 " He said ' Miss Ailing' most particular," ven- 
 tured Mary Ann. 
 
 " Then take my message just as I gave it, if you 
 please." 
 
 " Did you know," pursued Miss Ailing, when 
 the girl had gone, " that Perry is an inch taller 
 than his brother? His arms are longer, too. 
 They were exactly the same size until this sum- 
 mer." 
 
 Mrs. Wayt eyed her sister with a helpless, 
 distraught air, while the scissors flashed and
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 159 
 
 slipped through the muslin, and the worker ap- 
 peared to have no interest in life beyond the 
 manipulation of both. 
 
 " Dear," she said timidly at length, without 
 noticing the other's query. " I never blame you 
 for any action, however singular it may seem to 
 me. I know you always have some excellent 
 reason for what you do or say. But the Gilchrists 
 are our best neighbors, and are leading people in 
 the church. It would be unwise to offend them. 
 Do you object to telling me why you would not 
 see Mr. March Gilchrist ? " 
 
 Hetty shifted the pattern to a corner of the 
 stuff, turned it upside down and regarded it sol- 
 emnly, her head on one side. Then she pinned 
 it fast and fell again to cutting. 
 
 " I do object decidedly ! " she said composedly. 
 " But it is perhaps best that you should know the 
 truth. It may prevent unpleasant complications. 
 Mr. Gilchrist did me the honor last evening to 
 offer to marry me, and I refused him." 
 
 " Hetty Ailing ! " 
 
 " That is likely to remain my name. I supposed 
 that you would be surprised. / was ! " as coolly 
 as before. " I trust to your honor to keep Mr. 
 Gilchrist 's secret, even from Mr. Wayt. It is not 
 a matter that concerns anybody but ourselves. 
 And we will not allude to it again." 
 
 Struck by something unnatural in the girl's 
 perfect composure, the tender-hearted matron
 
 160 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 leaned forward to stroke the head bowed over 
 the work. 
 
 "There is something behind all this, Hetty, 
 dear. I am sure of it. It would make me very 
 happy to see you married to such a man as March 
 Gilchrist. What objection can you have to him 
 as a suitor?" 
 
 " The very question which he asked and I 
 answered. Excuse me for reminding you that 
 nobody else has the right to press it." 
 
 The rebuff did not end the discussion. The 
 matter was, in Mrs. Wayt's mind, too grave to be 
 lightly dismissed. 
 
 " Don't be angry with me ! " staying the prog- 
 ress of the clicking shears, that her sister might 
 be compelled to hear what she said, " I love you 
 too dearly to let you make a blunder you may 
 regret for a lifetime. March is a noble young 
 fellow, of unexceptionable family and character. 
 His disposition is excellent ; his manners are 
 charming ; he has talent, energy " 
 
 " Spare me the rest of the catalogue, please ! " 
 retorted Hetty curtly. " It is not like you, 
 Francis, to force a disagreeable subject upon me. 
 And this is one of the least agreeable you could 
 select. Discussion of it is indelicate and a breach 
 of confidence on my part and altogether useless 
 on yours." 
 
 Yet she was especially gentle and affection- 
 ate with her sister for the rest of the day. On
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 161 
 
 bidding her "good-night" she embraced her 
 fervently. 
 
 " I love you dearly ; better this minute than 
 ever before, if I was so savage this morning," she 
 said, with shining eyes, to March's champion. 
 
 Upstairs she read " Locksley Hall " through to 
 Hester, who was sleepless, until twelve o'clock. 
 Not until the clock had struck the half-hour after 
 midnight was Hetty free to take from her pocket 
 and look at a letter the afternoon mail had 
 brought. The superscription was in a hand she 
 had seen in notes to Hester and upon the fly- 
 leaves of books, and it was still sealed. She sat 
 looking at it, as it lay within the open palm of a 
 lax hand for a good (or bad) quarter of an hour. 
 
 Hester's regurgitate breathing worse to-night 
 than usual was the only sound in the chamber. 
 Now and then she raised her hands strugglingly, 
 as if dreaming, but she slept on. 
 
 To open that letter and take the contents into 
 her empty heart would be to the lonely orphan 
 Heaven on earth. It was long, for the envelope 
 held several sheets. It was eloquent, for she had 
 heard him talk upon the theme set forth in every 
 line. She had will-force sufficient to conceal from 
 the sister, whose heart would be broken by the 
 truth, her reasons for refusing to link hers with 
 the unsmirched name of the man she loved. She 
 was not strong enough to put her finger under 
 the flap of that envelope and read a single line,
 
 162 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 and then persist in doing right. Perhaps, in spite 
 of the repulse of the morning, he had again 
 called her " darling! " 
 
 She durst not risk the seeing ; she had strength 
 given her to keep the resolution, but she did no 
 more that night. The answer must wait until 
 morning. The letter was hidden under the pil- 
 low, and her hand touched it while she slept and 
 while she lay awake. In the still, purple dawn, 
 she arose quietly, not to disturb Hester, dressed 
 herself and knelt for a brief prayer, such as the 
 busiest member of the household had time to 
 offer. While she prayed she held the unopened 
 letter to her heart. Arising, she kissed it linger- 
 ingly. 
 
 " God bless my love ! " she whispered. 
 
 With steady fingers she wrote upon the reverse 
 of the envelope : " P cannot read this. Do not 
 write again" slipped it into a larger cover, ad- 
 dressed it, and, before the family was astir, sent 
 Homer with it to the nearest letter box. 
 
 She had acted bravely, and, she believed, de- 
 cisively, but she had blundered withal. An 
 unopened letter, unaccompanied by a word of 
 extenuation of the flagrant discourtesy, might 
 damp the ardor of the most adoring lover. Yet 
 March's eyes were lit by a ray of affectionate 
 amusement in receiving back this, the first love 
 letter he had ever penned. He kissed the one- 
 line sentence before putting the envelope away.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 163 
 
 " Perhaps she is afraid of herself ! " May had 
 suggested sagely, Apropos of Hetty's avoidance of 
 his visits. 
 
 The bright-natured suitor's conclusion, after 
 reading what was meant as a quietus to his ad- 
 dresses, was not dissimilar. If the case were 
 hopeless she would have written nothing. Never- 
 theless, he bowed to the laconic : " Do not write 
 again." He did more than she had commanded. 
 Without attempting to see Hetty again, he es- 
 corted his sister in the second week of July to 
 Long Branch, and stayed there a fortnight, then 
 went with her to Mt. Desert for ten days more. 
 
 The malign influence of a dog-day drought was 
 upon Fairhill when the pair returned. The 
 streets were deep in dust, the sun, a red and 
 rayless ball, had rolled from east to west, and 
 taken his own time in doing it, and was staining 
 to a dingy crimson horizon-vapors that looked 
 as dry as the dust, as brother and sister paused 
 upon the piazza for a look over the familiar land- 
 scape. 
 
 " It is stifling after the seashore ! " breathed 
 May. " But it is home ! I am glad to be back ! " 
 
 " And I always ! " 
 
 March said it, in stooping, hat in hand, to kiss 
 his mother. There was the ring of sincerity in 
 his voice ; his eyes were placid. He had come 
 home to her cured of an ill-starred fancy for an 
 ineligible girl. There was no sign of anything
 
 164 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 more than neighborly interest in his face when 
 May asked at dinner-time how the Wayts were. 
 
 " Well, I believe," replied Mrs. Gilchrist. " I 
 have seen comparatively little of them while you 
 were away, except at church. It has been too 
 hot for visiting. Yesterday I took Hester out to 
 drive. She misses you sadly, May. She is 
 thinner and has less color than when you went 
 away." 
 
 " Dear little Queen Mab ! " said Hester's friend. 
 " I must have her over to-morrow to spend the 
 day. I have some books and sketches for her. 
 And Hetty ? " 
 
 "Is as busy as usual, Hester tells me. She 
 goes out very little, I believe. The young 
 people hereabouts call her a recluse." 
 
 The unconscious judge came to the relief of 
 all parties. 
 
 " Mr. Wayt's congregation continues large," he 
 remarked. " He preached a truly remarkable 
 sermon last Sunday. At this rate we will have 
 to pull down our church and build a larger by 
 next year." 
 
 The wife looked gratified. It was much to 
 have her husband speak of " our church." 
 
 May was content to wait for the morrow's meet- 
 ing with her pet. Hester was wild with impa- 
 tience to be again with her worshiped friend. 
 Hetty might remonstrate, and her mother entreat 
 her not to intrude upon the family on the evening
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTEK. 165 
 
 of the travelers' arrival. The spoiled child was 
 unmanageable. She could not sleep a wink, she 
 protested, until she had kissed Miss May, and ex- 
 changed reports of the weeks separating them 
 from the dear everyday intercourse. She would 
 take with her the portfolio she had almost worked 
 herself ill to fill with what May must think showed 
 diligent endeavor to improve. 
 
 " Then, there is the great news to tell ! " 
 
 " Wouldn't it be well to wait a while before 
 speaking of that ? " dissuaded the mother. 
 
 "It is a week old, already !" Hester pouted, 
 " and I said never a word to Mrs. Gilchrist yester- 
 day. ' The Seasons ' " the ntot de famille at the 
 Gilchrists' for brother and sister " are our only 
 own friends, mamma. You can trust them to hold 
 their tongues ! " 
 
 " What seems a great event to us will be small' 
 to them," cautioned Mrs. Wayt then gave Hester 
 her way. 
 
 Nine o'clock saw her in Homer's charge on the 
 orchard road, the shortest, as it was the most 
 secluded, to the Gilchrist place. 
 
 " Where are you taking me, Tony ? " she aroused 
 from a happy, expectant reverie to ask, midway. 
 
 The aftermath of the June mowing was tall by 
 now, and the chair was almost hidden in it. 
 
 " Now I don' keer fur to take ye near that big 
 tree. Taint wholesome nor proper!" grunted 
 the charioteer. He was slightly afraid of the
 
 1 66 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 testy little damsel, and took on doughty airs at 
 times to disprove the fact. " We'll soon git inter 
 the path agi'n." 
 
 " But I won't stand this ! " cried Hester, irate. 
 " Go back to the path ! Not wholesome ! not 
 proper ! What do you mean ! " 
 
 "Now I seen the light there oftener'n any- 
 wheres else" Homer was beginning, when they 
 were hailed by a well-known voice. 
 
 " What are you doing over there ? " called 
 March. 
 
 " Swimming for our lives," returned Hester. 
 "Won't you dive, and drag me out by the hair of 
 my head ? " 
 
 Her tone was tremulous with delight. As he 
 took her hand, it quivered like a poplar leaf in his 
 large, cordial grasp. He was fond of Hester on 
 her own account, fonder of her because he linked 
 her with Hetty. He had strolled down the street 
 with his cigar after giving his mother a detailed 
 account of the pleasure making of the last three 
 weeks. He felt the heat inland to be oppressive 
 after the surf breeze. His mother was glad that 
 his saunter was not in the direction of the parson- 
 age. She knew nothing of the short cut from the 
 back street, or with what ease an athlete of six- 
 and-twenty could vault a five-barred fence. Be- 
 sides, was not her boy a cured and discharged 
 patient ! 
 
 The meeting with Hester, if not the best thing
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 167 
 
 he had hoped for, was so much better than a sol- 
 itary ramble in dream-haunted grounds that he 
 greeted her joyously. It was not the first time 
 the idea had come to him of making a confidante 
 of the keen-witted, deep-hearted child, but it sud- 
 denly took the shape of determination. 
 
 " Going to see May ! " He echoed her reply to 
 his next question. " She is tired out, and has gone 
 to her room by this. She means to claim you for 
 the whole of to-morrow. Give me a little chat in 
 our arbor instead, and I will take you home. I 
 have not seen you for an age, and I have some- 
 thing very interesting to me and important to 
 you, to say to you." 
 
 She laughed up in his face in sheer pleasure. 
 
 " And I have something particularly interesting 
 to me, and not important to you, to tell in return. 
 We have an event in our family an agreeable 
 happening as to results, although it comes by a 
 dark and crooked road or so mamma persists in 
 saying." 
 
 March had propelled her into the open track 
 and stopped as she said this to lean forward and 
 peer into the saucy face. A disagreeable an 
 absurd thrill passed over him. Had he lost 
 Hetty ? 
 
 " An event ! Accomplished or prospective ? " 
 
 " Both ! " chuckled Hester. 
 
 " Is it an engagement ? " bringing out the word 
 courageously.
 
 1 68 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 The question was never answered. A vigorous 
 onward push had brought them into the moonlit 
 area surrounding the king apple tree. Thor 
 rushed forward, bellowing ferociously at a long 
 black body that lay half under, half beyond the 
 dipping outward branches, now weighted almost 
 to the ground with growing fruit. 
 
 " Homer ! " shouted March to the figure retreat- 
 ing toward the garden. " Come back ! hurry ! " 
 And, hastily, to Hester : " I will send you home 
 with him and go for the police. Don't be 
 frightened. It is only a drunken tramp, or may 
 be a sleeper. In either case he cannot stay here. 
 These are my father's grounds." 
 
 Hester had not uttered a sound, but the slight 
 figure, bent toward the recumbent man, had a 
 strained intensity of expression words could not 
 have conveyed. Her eyes were fixed, as by the 
 fascination of horrified dread one small hand 
 plucked oddly at her throat. 
 
 " Take her home, Homer ! " March ordered, 
 "and say nothing to alarm the ladies. I'll attend 
 to him ! " 
 
 "No! no! NO!" shrilled Hester in an unearthly 
 tone that made him start. " You must go home ! 
 you ! you ! and say nothing ! tell nobody ! O God 
 of mercy, it has come at last ! Don't touch him ! " 
 her voice rising into a husky shriek. For, part- 
 ing the boughs, March passed to the head of the 
 prostrate man, and stooped to raise him. His
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 169 
 
 quick eye had perceived that he was well dressed 
 and no common tramp in figure, also that he had 
 lain, not fallen, where he was found. In bending 
 to take hold of him, he detected, even in the 
 intensity of his excitement, the peculiar, heavy, 
 close odor of drugs that had hung in the air on 
 the Fourth of July night. In company with a 
 policeman, our young artist had once visited 
 a Chinese " opium dive " in New York, and he 
 recognized the smell now. 
 
 Homer was beside him, and lent intelligent aid. 
 
 " Now" he drawled, without the slightest evi- 
 dence of alarm, " /mos'ly lif's him up ^-fashion ! " 
 
 The action brought the features into a rift of 
 moonlight. 
 
 " Great Heavens ! " broke from March in a 
 low tone of horror and dismay. " It is Mr. 
 Wayt ! " 
 
 Laying him on the turf he went back to Hester 
 and seized the bar of her chair. 
 
 " You must go home ! You must not see him, 
 my poor child ! It is your father, and he is very 
 ill unconscious. Not a moment is to be lost. I 
 must go for a doctor immediately ! " 
 
 " Let go!" 
 
 Beside herself with fury, she actually struck at 
 the hand grasping the propeller; her eyes flashed 
 fire ; her accents, hardly louder than a wheezing 
 whisper, were jerky gasps, painful to hear. 
 
 " Let go, I say ! and do you go to your safe,
 
 170 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. 
 
 decent home, as I told you ! Tony and I are 
 used to this sort of thing ! " 
 
 " Hester ! you do not know what you are 
 saying ! " March came around and faced her, 
 trying to quiet her by cold, stern authority. 
 
 It was thrown away. She raved on still tear- 
 ing away with her tiny fierce hands at her 
 heaving throat as if to give speech freer vent. 
 
 " I do know oh, we are graduates in these frol- 
 icsome escapades ! It is inconsiderate in him " 
 with a horrid laugh " to give his wife, his 
 wife's sister, and the family factotum such a job 
 as carrying him all this way. To do him justice, 
 he seldom forgets the decencies so entirely. If I 
 had my way, he should lie here all night. Only 
 his wife would come out and stay with him. 
 What are you staring at me for, Mr. Gilchrist ? 
 Here is our family skeleton ! Does it frighten 
 you out of your wits ? " 
 
 Her croaks of laughter theatened dissolution to 
 the fragile frame. It was an awful, a repulsive 
 exhibition. 
 
 "It is you who have lost yours!" rejoined 
 March gravely. " Your father may be dying, for 
 aught you know. A hundred men fell in the 
 streets of New York to-day, overcome by the heat 
 and we are wasting precious minutes in wild, 
 nonsensical talk. If you will let Homer take you 
 to the house, and compose yourself sufficiently to 
 prepare your mother for the shock of seeing her
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 171 
 
 husband brought in insensible, we may save him 
 yet. Go ! and send Homer back at once." 
 
 The wild eyes surveyed him piercingly ; with a 
 low, meaning laugh, she sank back among her 
 cushions. 
 
 " I think" she said distinctly and deliberately 
 " that you are the best man God ever made ! 
 Go on, Tony!" 
 
 Left alone with the unconscious man, March 
 stooped and rolled him entirely over. He had 
 been lying, face downward, his cheek to the 
 sward ; one arm was by his side, the other was 
 thrown in a natural position above his head. 
 His pulse was almost normal, although somewhat 
 sluggish ; his respiration heavy, but not stertor- 
 ous : his complexion was not sanguine. His 
 breath and, March fancied, his whole body reeked 
 of opium. March shook him gently. He slept 
 on. With a disgustful shiver, he forced himself 
 to pass an arm under his head and lift it to his 
 knee. There was no change in the limp lethargy. 
 The young man laid him down, and, rising, stood 
 off and looked at the pitiable wreck. Hester's 
 frenzied tirade had disabused the listener's mind 
 of the suspicion of suicide. He could no longer 
 doubt that here was the unraveling of the com- 
 plex design that had vexed his heart and head. 
 The popular preacher was not the first of brilliant 
 parts and high position who had fallen a victim to 
 a debasing and insidious habit, but his skill and
 
 I7 2 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 effrontery in concealing the truth were remarkable. 
 Yet might not March have divined the nature of 
 the mystery before this revelation ? The peculiar 
 brilliancy of the deep-set eyes ; his variable spirits; 
 his fluent and, at times, erratic speech ; the very 
 character of his pulpit eloquence might have 
 betrayed him to an expert. His wife's nervous 
 vigilance and eager assiduity of devotion above 
 all, the episode of the midnight toilers, and the 
 conflicting stories of the need of that toil finally 
 and he recalled it with a bursting heart Hetty's 
 declaration to her lover that there were insur- 
 mountable obstacles to their union were as clear 
 as daylight now. The sudden illness of that 
 memorable Saturday night was stupor like that 
 which now chained the slave of appetite to the 
 earth. 
 
 How often and with what excess of anguish the 
 revolting scene had been enacted only the two 
 unhappy sisters knew, unless the still more hap- 
 less daughter were in the secret. Her wail, " Oh, 
 God of mercy ! it has come at last ! " was a key 
 to depths of suspenseful endurance and labyrinths 
 of unavailing deception. 
 
 Unavailing, for the instant of detection was 
 the beginning of the end. The man was ruined 
 beyond redemption. A whisper of his infirmity 
 would be the loss of place, reputation, and liveli- 
 hood, and his innocent family would go down 
 quick into the pit with him. This was the vision
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 1 73 
 
 of impending gloom that had disturbed what 
 should be sunny deeps in the sweetest eyes in the 
 world to him. This was the almost certain pros- 
 pect that made her write, " I can never be more 
 than your friend ! " 
 
 The Gilchrist was clean, honest blood. Hetty 
 testified her appreciation of this truth by refusing 
 to marry him. He could think how his mother 
 would look when she had heard the story and 
 how Fairhill gossip would gloat over the " newest 
 thing in clerical scandals ! " 
 
 Why should it be made public? Why should 
 he not help to keep it quiet instead of pulling 
 down ruin upon the helpless and unoffending ? 
 Hetty had written, " In mercy to the inno- 
 cent." He seemed to hear her say it now, in 
 his ear. 
 
 A faint melodious chime just vibrated through 
 the sultry air. The fine bell of the " Old First " 
 had struck the half hour. The church in which 
 he was baptized ; the church of his mother's love 
 and prayers ! At thought of the pulpit desecrated 
 by this fellow's feet, a rush of indignant contempt 
 surged up to his lips. 
 
 " Sacrilegious dog ! " he muttered, touching 
 the motionless heap with his foot. 
 
 Homer shambled back out of breath. He had 
 brought a lantern. 
 
 " Noiv it's powerful shady under the trees ! " 
 he replied to March's remark that the moon gave
 
 l?4 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 all the light they required. " An' ther's somethin' 
 come ter me, as I want ter see ! " 
 
 He set down the lantern, hugged the tree bole, 
 and went up a foot or two. Then were heard a 
 scratching and a rattling overhead. 
 
 " Now would ye a mind holdin' this 'tell I git 
 'em all ? " 
 
 The "all" were four bottles and a tin box. 
 Two phials were long and empty. A name was 
 blown in the glass. March held one down to the 
 light. 
 
 " Elixir of Opium ! " 
 
 The others were larger and of stout blue glass. 
 A printed label said " Phosphate." March pulled 
 out a cork and smelled the contents. Opium 
 again ! 
 
 The box held the same drug as a dark paste. 
 
 " I mistrusted them horsephates a coople o' 
 times ! " said Homer, imperturbably sagacious. 
 " He wor too everlastin' fond of 'em. He skeered 
 me with the devil inter goin' ter the drug store 
 with a paper ter tell 'em for ter give me that ar* 
 one," designating an empty phial. " Leastways, 
 one like it. An' Miss Hetty, she foun' it in the 
 garding, where I drapped it. Then, 'twas she tole 
 me nivver to go nowhar 'thout 'twas she sent me. 
 An' I aint sence ! An' he's t'reatened me orful 
 a many a time 'cause what she said to me that 
 time. I guess he bought 'em in New York, mos' 
 likely. He's a sharp un Mr. Wayt is ! "
 
 MR. IVAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. i?5 
 
 March eyed him suspiciously. 
 
 " How did you know where these things were, 
 if you had nothing to do with hiding them ! " 
 
 " Now " stolid under the implied doubt, or not 
 noticing it " you reklec' the Sunday night me 'n 
 you was talkin' here, 'n' he come along, an' I 
 shinned up the tree ? I bet " with more anima- 
 tion than March had ever seen him display 
 before " he was a-comin' for a drink then ! 
 'Twas the very night before, when Miss Hetty, 
 she come all the way up to my room, an' sez she, 
 ' Homer,' sez she, ' Mr. Wayt has done it agin/ 
 she say. An' so he had, an' him a lyin' on the 
 study floor jes' as you see him now an' Mrs. 
 Wayt a-cryin' over him. You see she'd b'lieved, 
 sure an' certain, he'd nuvver do so no more. But 
 / mistrusted them horsephates. Noiv, that very 
 night Sunday night 'twas, 'n' me an' you was a- 
 talkin' here as I was a-slidin' down the tree I 
 kotched inter a hole, an' somethin' sort o' jingled, 
 like glass. I nuvver t'ought no more 'bout it tell 
 jes' ez I come up to-night an' see him a-sprawlin' 
 thar, an' I smelled the stuff. I'll jes' hide 'em in 
 the grass, an' to-morrow early I'll bury 'em in the 
 garding. But it's a quare cupboard, that is." 
 
 While talking, he was busy spreading upon the 
 turf a heavy shawl, such as were worn by men, 
 forty years ago. " Now ef you'll lend a lift to 
 him ! " to the wondering observer. 
 
 The plan was ingenious, but Homer's dexterity
 
 I?6 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 in carrying it out, and the sangfroid he main- 
 tained throughout, betokened an amount of prac- 
 tice at which March's soul recoiled. It was 
 frightfully realistic. Mr. Wayt was laid in the 
 middle of the big plaid ; the two ends were 
 knotted tightly upon his chest, inclosing his 
 arms, the other two about his ankles. 
 
 " I'll hitch on to the heavy eend," quoth the 
 bunch of muscle and bone March had begun to 
 admire. " Me bein' useter to it nor what you be. 
 You take holt on his feet." 
 
 In such style the stately saint was borne up the 
 back steps and laid upon the settee in the par- 
 sonage hall. 
 
 Mrs. Wayt was upon the porch. Her first 
 words gave one of the bearers his cue. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Gilchrist ! This is dreadful ! And he 
 seemed so well at dinner time ! The heat often 
 affects him seriously. He had a sunstroke some 
 years ago, and every summer he feels the effects 
 of it. Lay him down here and rest before taking 
 him upstairs. There. Thank you." 
 
 While she undid and removed the clerical 
 cravat and collar from his throat, March straight- 
 ened his spine and looked around for Hetty. 
 The house was as still as a grave. The front door 
 was closed ; the rooms on both sides of the hall 
 were dark and silent. It was Thursday night, 
 the universal " evening out " for Fairhill servants. 
 March recollected it in the mechanical way in which
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIPES SISTER. i?7 
 
 one thinks of trifles at important junctures. He 
 was glad mechanically that Mary Ann was not 
 there to carry the tale of Mr. Wayt's fainting fit, 
 or semi-sunstroke, or whatever name his wife 
 chose to put to it, to Mrs. Gilchrist. He was 
 beginning to ask himself what he should say at 
 home of what he had done with himself between 
 nine and ten o'clock that evening. 
 
 The transportation up to the second story was 
 slow and difficult. Mrs. Wayt supported her hus- 
 band's head, and, like a flash, recurred to March 
 Hester's sneer of the task laid upon " his wife, 
 his wife's sister, and the family factotum." It 
 must have been barely accomplished on the July 
 night when he and May brought Hester home, 
 and Hetty ran down out of breath, her hair 
 disheveled and eyes scared! That her hands 
 should be fouled by such a burden ! 
 
 His face was set whitely, as, having deposited 
 the load upon the bed, he accosted the wife : 
 
 " Would you like to have a physician ? " 
 
 His tone was hard and constrained. She did 
 not look up. 
 
 " You are very good but it is not necessary 
 thank you ! I have seen him as ill before from 
 the same cause and know what to do for him. 
 And he is morbidly sensitive with regard to these 
 attacks. He thinks it would injure him in his 
 profession if the impression were to get abroad 
 that his health is unsound or his constitution
 
 178 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 breaking up. I shall not even dare tell him that 
 you have seen him to-night." 
 
 She was putting extraordinary force upon her- 
 self, but she could not meet his eye. 
 
 " I cannot thank you just now as I would, Mr. 
 Gilchrist. I am all unnerved, and although I 
 know this seizure is not dangerous, it is a terrible 
 ordeal to me to witness it. May I ask that you 
 will not mention it, even to Judge and Mrs. Gil- 
 christ ? My husband would be mortified and dis- 
 tressed beyond measure were his illness the sub- 
 ject of even friendly remark." 
 
 March hesitated, and she turned upon him 
 quickly. Her face was that of an old woman 
 gray, withered, and scored with lines, each one of 
 which meant an agony. 
 
 His resolution dissolved like the frost before 
 fire. 
 
 "You may depend upon my discretion and 
 friendship," he said impulsively. 
 
 She burst into tears, the low, convulsive sob- 
 bing he had heard above stairs on that other 
 night. 
 
 Unable to bear more he ran down the stair- 
 case, and recognized before he reached the foot 
 that he had committed himself to a lie. 
 
 " Mr. Gilchrist ! " 
 
 His hand was upon the lock of the front door 
 when he caught the low call. 
 
 Hetty stood upon the threshold of the library,
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 1 79 
 
 a shadowy figure in white that seemed to waver 
 in the uncertain light. 
 
 " I should like to speak to you, if you can spare 
 a few minutes," she pursued, leading the way into 
 the room. 
 
 With a bow of acquiescence he sat down and 
 waited for her to begin. His mind was in a 
 tumult; dumb pain devoured him. He felt as 
 any honorable man might feel who condones a 
 felony.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " MY sister has begged you to keep secret what 
 you have seen to-night has she not ? " was 
 Hetty's first inquiry, spoken without haste and 
 without excitement. 
 
 A mute bow replied. 
 
 "And you have promised to do it ? " 
 
 " I told Mrs. Wayt that she might depend upon 
 my discretion." 
 
 " Which she construes into a pledge to connive 
 at a wrong done to a church and a community," 
 in precisely the same tone and manner as before. 
 
 March stared at her perplexedly. What did 
 the girl mean ? And was this resolute, impassive 
 woman of business the blushing trembler who, 
 a month ago, could not deny her love for him ? 
 She was very serious now, but apparently very 
 tranquil. 
 
 " You would say, if you were not too kind- 
 hearted, that this is what I am doing what I 
 have been doing for nearly ten years and you 
 would be right. It would not exculpate me in 
 your opinion if I were to represent that Mr. 
 Wayt's profession is all that stands between his 
 family and the poorhouse ; that I do not habitu- 
 ally attend the church in. which he officiates, and
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 181 
 
 that my name has never appeared upon the 
 record of any one of the parishes of which he has 
 had charge since I became a member of his family. 
 Mr. Wayt and I have not exchanged a syllable 
 directly for over five years. I neither respect nor 
 like him. He can never forgive my knowledge of 
 his character, and my interference with his habits. 
 These were confirmed before I came to my 
 sister." 
 
 " Let me beg," interposed March, " that you 
 will not go on with what cannot but be distress- 
 ing to you. You need no justification in my sight. 
 If you will permit me to call to-morrow morning 
 we can talk matters over calmly and at leisure. 
 It is late, and you have had a severe nervous 
 strain." 
 
 " Unless you insist upon the postponement I 
 would rather speak now, while my mind is steady 
 in the purpose to make an end of subterfuge and 
 concealment. I am weary, but it is of falsehoods, 
 acted and spoken. Hester has told me of your 
 generous pretense of misunderstanding the nature 
 of Mr. Wayt's attack. There it is again ! " relaps- 
 ing into her usual tone, and with whimsical vexa- 
 tion that made March smile. " I am afraid I 
 have forgotten how to be frank ! My poor sister's 
 eager talk of ' attacks ' and ' seizures ' and ' turns ' 
 and ' sunstroke ' and ' constitutional headaches ' 
 has unbalanced my perceptions of right and 
 wrong."
 
 1 82 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 "You cannot expect me to agree with you 
 there ? " the suppressed smile becoming visible. 
 
 She was not to be turned aside from the straight 
 track. 
 
 " Nothing so perverts conscience as a system- 
 atic course of concealment, even when it is prac- 
 ticed for what seem to be noble ends. I have 
 felt this for a long time. Lately the sense of guilt 
 has been insupportable. It may be relief if not 
 expiation to tell the truth in the plainest terms 
 I can use. It may leave me more wretched than 
 I am now. But right is right." 
 
 Her chin trembled and she raised her hand to 
 cover it. Her admirable composure was smolder- 
 ing excitement, kept under by will and the con- 
 science whose rectitude she undervalued. With 
 a sub-pang, March perceived that this disclosure 
 was not a confidence, but a duty. 
 
 " Mr. Wayt was a confirmed opium eater and 
 drinker, twelve years ago," she resumed in a cold 
 monotone. " He would drink intoxicating liquors, 
 too, when narcotics were not to be had. I believe 
 the appetite for the two is a common symptom of 
 the habit. . His wife shielded him, then, as she 
 does now, and so successfully that he kept a 
 church in Cincinnati for four years. Hester was 
 a beautiful, active child, eight years old, and a 
 great pet with her father. He does not care for 
 children, as a rule, but she was pretty and clever 
 and amused him. One day she begged her
 
 MR. WA FT" 5 WIFE'S SISTER. 183 
 
 mother to let her take "dear papa's " lunch up to 
 him. It was always " dear papa " with her. He 
 had a way of locking himself in his study from 
 morning until night Saturday. Even his wife did 
 not suspect that he wrote his Sunday sermon 
 with a glass of laudanum and brandy at his side. 
 He was busy upon a set of popular discourses on 
 ' Crying Sins of the Day.' They drew immense 
 crowds." 
 
 A sarcastic gleam passed over her face, and for 
 the first time the listener saw a likeness to the 
 witty and wise cripple. 
 
 " Hester knocked again and again without get- 
 ting answered. Then her father called out that he 
 was busy and did not want any lunch. She was 
 always willful, and he had indulged her unreason- 
 ably. So she declared that she would not go away 
 until he opened the door and took the tray not if 
 she had to stand there and knock all day. He 
 tore open the door in a fury, threw the tray and 
 the lunch downstairs, and flung the child after it. 
 The drugged drink had made him crazy." 
 
 March shuddered. 
 
 " And that was the cause " 
 
 " It left her what you see, now. The effect 
 upon her character and feelings was, if possible, 
 more deplorable. From that hour she has never 
 spoken to her father at all, or of him as 'papa.' 
 It is always ' he ' and ' him ' to the family, 
 " Mr. Wayt " to strangers. It seems horribly
 
 184 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 unnatural, but she loathes and despises him. 
 While she lay crushed and suffering for the 
 months that passed before she left her bed, she 
 would go into convulsions at sight of him. Her 
 mother begged her, on her knees, to ' forgive 
 poor papa, who had a delirious headache when 
 he pushed her away from the door.' Hester 
 refused passionately. She is no more forgiving 
 now. Yet she was so proud and shrewd, even 
 then, that she never betrayed to the doctors how 
 she was hurt. She let everybody believe that it 
 was an accident. I had been her nurse for six 
 months before she told me the fearful story. 
 
 " The truth never got abroad in Cincinnati, but 
 flying rumors of Mr. Wayt's growing eccentric- 
 ities and the possible cause gathered an oppo- 
 sition party in the church. It was headed by a 
 prominent druggist, who had talked with others 
 in the trade from whom Mr. Wayt had bought 
 opium, laudanum, and brandy. He has been 
 more cunning in his purchases since then. He 
 was obliged to resign his charge, and became 
 what poor Hester calls ' an ecclesiastical tramp.' 
 He controls his appetite within tolerably safe' 
 bounds for a while, sometimes for months, then 
 gives way, and we live on the verge of discovery 
 and disgrace until the crisis comes. The- end is 
 always the same. We break camp and ' move on.' " 
 
 " Yet he brought clean papers to the Fairhill 
 church."
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 185 
 
 A dreary smile went with the answer. 
 
 " Clerical charity suffereth long and is kind ! 
 Out of curiosity I attended once a meeting of 
 a presbytery that dismissed him from his church 
 and commended him to another presbytery. We 
 had narrowly escaped public exposure at that 
 time. The sexton found Mr. Wayt in the condi- 
 tion you have seen this evening upon the floor 
 of the lecture room and called in a physician, who 
 boldly proclaimed that the man was ' dead drunk.' 
 The accused put in a plea of indisposition and 
 an overdose of brandy, inadvertently swallowed, 
 His brethren, assembled in solemn session, spoke 
 of his faithful work in the vineyard and the lead- 
 ings of Divine Providence, and said that their 
 prayers went with him to his new field of labor. 
 
 " I don't want to be unjust or cynical, Mr. Gil- 
 christ, and I can see that there is a pleasanter 
 side to the case. There is such a thing as Chris- 
 tain charity, and more of it in the world than we 
 are willing to admit. However church people 
 may gossip about an unpopular pastor, and 
 maneuver to get rid of him, when the parting 
 comes they will not brand him in the eyes of 
 others. And clergymen are very faithful to one 
 another. It is really beautiful to see how they 
 try to hide faults and foibles. It is a literal 
 fulfillment of the command, * Bear ye one an- 
 other's burdens.' In some in most of Mr. 
 Wayt's charges the secret of his frequent change
 
 l86 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 of pastorate was not told. He was ' odd,' and 
 ' had nomadic tastes.' Sometimes the climate 
 did not agree with his health. The air was too 
 strong or too weak. Twice poor Hester's condi- 
 tion demanded an immediate change. We went 
 to Chicago to be near an eminent surgeon, who, 
 after all, never saw her. 
 
 " I will not weary you with the details of a life 
 such as I pray God few families know. After 
 a few years Hester and I became hopeless of 
 anything better. Wherever we might go, change, 
 and the probability of disgrace, were a mere ques- 
 tion of time. My sister never loses faith in her 
 husband and in an overruling Power that will 
 not forsake the righteous. For, strange as it 
 may seem, she believes in the piety of a man 
 whose sacred profession is a continual lie. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Gilchrist ! " the enforced monotony of 
 her tone wavering into a cry of pain " I think 
 that is the worst of all ! When I recollect my 
 mother's pure religion when I see your mother's 
 beneficent life and firm faith in goodness and in 
 God when I know that, in spite of the seeming 
 untruthfulness which is, she thinks, necessary to 
 protect her husband my sister holds fast to her 
 love and trust in an Almighty Friend, and walks 
 humbly with her God, I feel such indignation 
 against a man who is the slave of passion, selfish, 
 vain, and conscienceless, and yet assumes to show 
 such souls the way to heaven, that I dare not
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 187 
 
 enter the church where he is allowed to preach, 
 lest I should cry out in the face of his hearers 
 against the monstrous cheat ! " 
 
 Her eyes flamed clear; the torrent of feeling 
 swept away reserve and coldness. 
 
 " I understand ! " March said, with sympathetic 
 warmth. " You never disappoint me. Tell me 
 what I can do to help you. I cannot let you 
 endure all this alone any longer." 
 
 " Nobody can take my share of the burden. I 
 would hardly know myself without it. It will be 
 the heavier for my sister's distress and Hester's 
 anger when they hear what I have decided to do. 
 Hester was on her way over to your house when 
 you met her, full of news she could not wait until 
 to-morrow to tell. My mother's only brother 
 went to Japan thirty years ago and became rich. 
 He died last March, leaving most of his fortune 
 to benevolent institutions in America. To each 
 of us, his sister's children, he bequeathed ten 
 thousand dollars. It is not a fortune, but with 
 our modest tastes, and when joined to the little 
 I already have, it will support us decently. My 
 first thought, when the news reached us, a week 
 ago, was ' Now, Mr. Wayt need never take an- 
 other charge ! We need not live upon tainted 
 food ! ' " 
 
 "You are a noble woman, Hetty 
 
 She interrupted him. 
 
 " I am not ! This is not self-sacrifice, but self-
 
 1 88 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 preservation. If the money had not been given 
 to us, I must have found some way out of a false 
 position. I want you to tell your father all you 
 know. Keep back nothing I have told you. He 
 is a good and a merciful man. Let him speak 
 openly to Mr. Wayt and forbid him ever to enter 
 the pulpit again upon penalty of public exposure 
 and suspension from the ministry. What Judge 
 Gilchrist says will have weight. With all his high 
 looks and sounding talk, Mr. Wayt is a coward. 
 He would not venture to resist the decision. 
 Then we will go away quietly. I have thought 
 of the little town in which my sister and I were 
 born. Living is cheap there and there are excel- 
 lent schools for the children. Twenty-five thou- 
 sand dollars will go very far in that region, and 
 we can be honest people once more." 
 
 " You have arranged it all, have you ? " said 
 March, not at all in the tone she had expected to 
 hear. " Give them the cheap town, and the good 
 schools, and the twenty-five thousand dollars by 
 all means. They can have everything but yon ! "
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE long storm in August set in next day. A 
 fine, close drizzle veiled the world by 7 o'clock. 
 At 8.30, the twins and Fanny needed their water- 
 proof cloaks for the walk to school. By noon the 
 patter on the piazza roof and falling floods upon 
 lawn and garden and streets were slow, but abun- 
 dant. It was scrubbing day and closet day, and, 
 as Hester fretted sometimes to methodical Mary 
 Ann on Friday, " all the rest of the week," below 
 stairs. Hetty had to prepare a dessert and to set 
 the lunch table. Before going down she made 
 up a little fire in the sewing room, and put out 
 Hester's color-box, glass of water, stretching 
 board, paper, and easel within easy reach, should 
 she decide to use them. Silently, and not too 
 suggestively, she set upon the table near by a 
 vase containing some fine specimens of the moc- 
 casin flower sent in by May Gilchrist, with a note 
 addressed to " Queen Mab." Hester hated hints, 
 but if she lacked a study she would not have to 
 look far for it. 
 
 It was "a bad day" with her. Her mother at- 
 tributed it partly to her disappointment at not 
 seeing her crony teacher.
 
 19 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 Hetty, who had put the excited child to bed as 
 soon as she got into the house the night before, held 
 her peace. Mrs. Way t, hovering from the nursery 
 and her husband's chamber to the sewing room, 
 saw that in her taciturn daughter's countenance 
 that warned and kept her aloof. Another of 
 Hester's biting sayings was that her mother, on the 
 day succeeding one of her spouse's " seizures " was 
 "betwixt the devil and the deep sea." She never 
 admitted, even to her sister, that " dear Percy " 
 was more than " unfortunate," yet read Hetty's 
 disapprobation in averted looks and studiously 
 commonplace talk. 
 
 Wan and limp the cripple reclined among the 
 cushions Hetty packed about her in her wheeled 
 chair. Blue shadows ringed mouth and eyes, and 
 stretched themselves in the hollowed temples ; 
 the deft fingers were nerveless. Most of the time 
 she seemed to watch the rain under drooping eye- 
 lids, so transparent as to show the dark irides 
 beneath. 
 
 At half past eleven her mother stole in like a 
 bit of drifted down. 
 
 " Dear, I have promised papa to go up to your 
 room and lie down for half an hour. Annie is 
 with him. She amuses him, and will be very 
 good, she says. I told her to let you know if she 
 wanted anything. May I leave the door open ? 
 She cannot turn this stiff bolt." 
 
 Annie was one of Hester's weak points.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. IQI 
 
 "Baby" never made her nervous or impatient, 
 and much of the little one's precocity was due to 
 intimate companionship with the disabled sister, 
 whose plaything she was. 
 
 " Yes. All right ! " murmured Hester, closing 
 her eyes entirely. 
 
 She was deathly pallid in the uncolored gloom 
 of a rainy noon. 
 
 " Or if you feel like taking a nap, yourself ? " 
 hesitated Mrs. Wayt. 
 
 Tactful with her husband, and tender with all 
 her household, she yet had the misfortune often 
 to rub Hester's fur the wrong way. The delicately 
 pencilled brows met over frowning eyes. 
 
 " No ! no ! you know I never sleep in the day ! 
 If you would never bother yourself with my peace 
 and comfort, mamma, we should be on better 
 terms. I am not a baby, or a husband ! " 
 
 She was not sorry for her ill humor or for the 
 long gap between the last article and noun, when 
 left to herself. 
 
 She lay upon a bed of thorns, each of which 
 was endued with intelligent vitality. Earth was a 
 waste. Heaven had never been. Hate herself 
 for it as she might she had never, in all her rueful 
 existence, known suffering comparable to that 
 condensed into the three little minutes she had 
 lived twelve hours ago. 
 
 When Hetty had come up to bed her face was 
 beautiful with a strange white peace, at sight of
 
 192 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 which Hester held her breath. Coming swiftly, 
 but without bustle, across the room, she kneeled 
 by the bed and gathered the frail form in the 
 dear, strong arms that had cradled it a thousand 
 times. Her eyes sparkled, her lips were parted 
 by quick breaths, but she tried to speak quietly. 
 
 " Precious child ! you should be asleep. But I 
 am glad you are not, for I have a message for 
 you. We you and I are to take no anxious 
 thought for to-morrow, or for any more of the 
 to-morrows we are to spend together. March 
 told me to say that and to give you this ! " laying 
 a kiss upon her lips. " For he loves me, Hester, 
 darling, and you are to live with us ! Just as we 
 planned, ever and ever so long ago ! But what 
 day dream was ever so beautiful as this?" 
 
 For one of the three awful minutes Hester 
 thought and hoped she was dying. The fright- 
 ened blood ebbed back with turbulence that 
 threw her into a spasm of trembling and weeping. 
 She recollected pushing Hetty away, then clutch- 
 ing her frantically to pull her down for a storm of 
 passionate kisses given between tearless sobs. 
 Then she gave way to wheezing shrieks of 
 laughter, which Hetty tried to check. She would 
 not let her move or speak after that. 
 
 " How thoughtless in me not to know that you 
 were too much unnerved to bear another shock 
 even of happiness ! " said the loving nurse. " No ! 
 don't try to offer so much as a word of congratu-
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 193 
 
 lation. It will keep ! All we have to do to-night 
 is to obey the order of our superior officer, and 
 not think only trust ! " 
 
 In the morning there was no opportunity for 
 speech-making. A night of suffering had beaten 
 Hester dumb. 
 
 " Nobody could be surprised at that ! " cooed 
 Hetty, as she rubbed and bathed the throbbing 
 spine. " If I could but pour down this aching 
 column some of my redundant vitality! " 
 
 Hester detested herself in acknowledging the 
 fervent sincerity of the wish. Hetty would 
 willingly divide her life with her, as she had 
 said yesterday that she meant to divide her 
 fortune. 
 
 " Half for you while I live ! All for you when 
 I am gone ! " 
 
 The sad sweetness of the smile accompanying 
 the words was as little like the wonderful white 
 shining of last night as the lot cast for Hetty was 
 like that of the deformed dwarf whose height of 
 grotesque folly was attained when she loved 
 first, in dreams and in " drifting " then, all 
 unconsciously, in actual scenes and waking mo- 
 ments one whose whole heart belonged to the 
 woman who had " made her over," to whom she 
 owed life, brain, and soul ! 
 
 She was to live with them ! Hetty must make 
 her partaker of her every good. By force of long 
 habit, Hester fell to planning the house the three
 
 194 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 would inhabit. She was herself always helpless, 
 never less a burden than now a piece of rubbish 
 in the pretty rooms, a clog upon domestic 
 machinery a barrier to social pleasure the inad- 
 missible third in the married tete-a-t$te. 
 
 She writhed impotently. More useless than a 
 toy ; more troublesome than a baby uglier than 
 the meanest insect that crawls she must yet 
 submit to the fate that fastened her upon the 
 young lives of her custodians. 
 
 " I doubt if I could even take my own life ! " she 
 meditated darkly. " In my fits of rage and 
 despair, I used to threaten to roll my chair down 
 the stairs and break my neck to ' finish the job.' 
 I said it once to mamma. I wonder sometimes if 
 that is the reason Tony puts up gates across the 
 top of the stairs wherever we go ? He says it is 
 to keep baby Annie from tumbling 'down. I 
 haven't cared to die lately, but to-day I wish my 
 soul had floated clean out of my body in that five 
 minute make-believe under the pink tent of the 
 apple tree, three months ago. 
 
 " I suppose he will be coming here constantly, 
 now. Hetty won't belong to me any more. I am 
 very wicked ! I am jealous of her with him, and 
 of him with her ! I am a spiteful, malicious, 
 broken-backed toad ! Oh, how I despise Hester 
 Wayt ! And I owe it all to him ! " 
 
 She glowered revengefully at the door her 
 mother had left unclosed.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 195 
 
 Baby Annie was having a lovely hour with " dee 
 papa." He had not left his bed, but the nausea 
 and sense of goneness with which he had 
 awakened, were yielding to the administration of 
 minute potions of opium by his wife, at stated 
 intervals. A fit of delirium tremens, induced by 
 the failure to "cool him off" secundum artem, 
 had brought about Homer's introduction to' his 
 nominal employer. Routed from his secret lodg- 
 ings under the roof-tree at one o'clock of a winter 
 morning, Hetty's waif had first run for a doctor, 
 and, pending his arrival, pinioned the raving 
 patient with his sinewy arms until the man of 
 intelligent measures took charge of the case. Mrs. 
 Wayt had run no such risks since. 
 
 Her lord never confessed that he took opium or 
 ardent spirits. Indeed, he made capital of his 
 total abstinence even from tobacco. There was 
 always a cause, natural or violent, for his attacks. 
 The Chicago seizure followed upon his rashness in 
 swallowing, " mistaking it for mineral water," a 
 pint of spirits of wine, bought for cleaning his 
 Sunday suit. Other turns he attributed, severally, 
 to dyspepsia, to vertigo, to over-study, and to 
 extreme heat. A sunstroke, suffered when he 
 was in college, rendered him peculiarly sensitive 
 to hot weather. His wife never gainsaid his 
 elaborate explanations. He was her Percy, her 
 conscience, her king. She not only went backward 
 with the cloak of love to conceal his shame, but
 
 196 MR. WA YTS WIFE'S SISTEJZ. 
 
 she affected to forget the degradation when he 
 became sober. 
 
 Many women in a thousand, and about one 
 man in twenty millions, are " built so." The 
 policy or principle may be humane. It is not 
 Godlike. The All-Merciful calls sinners to re- 
 pentance before offering pardon. The Church 
 insists upon conviction as a preliminary to con- 
 version. Mrs. Wayt was a Christian and a church- 
 woman, but she clung pathetically to belief in 
 the efficacy of her plan for the reclamation of her 
 husband. In life, or in death, she would not have 
 upon her soul the weight of a reproach addressed 
 to him whom she had sworn to " honor." Love 
 was omnipotent. In time he would learn the 
 depth of hers and be lured back to the right 
 way. 
 
 He was plaintive this forenoon, but not peevish. 
 His eyes were bloodshot; his tongue was furry; 
 there was a gnawing in the pit of his stomach and 
 an unaccountable ache at the base of the brain. 
 
 " I have missed another sunstroke by a hair's 
 breadth," he informed his wife. " I almost regret 
 that we did not go to the seashore. My summer 
 labors are exhausting the reserves of vital 
 energy." 
 
 " Why not run down to the beach for a day or 
 two next week?" suggested Mrs. Wayt. "Now 
 that your wife is an heiress, you can afford a 
 change of air, now and then."
 
 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 197 
 
 A dull red arose in the sallow cheek. He pulled 
 her down to kiss her. 
 
 " The best, sweetest wife ever given to man ! " 
 he said. 
 
 After that he bade her get a little rest. She 
 must have slept little the night before. Annie 
 would k'eep him company. While his head was 
 so light and his tongue so thick Annie's was the 
 best society for him. She made no demand upon 
 intellectual forces. He sent the best wife ever 
 given to man off lightened in spirit, and grateful 
 for the effort he made to appease her anxiety and 
 to affect the gayety he could not be supposed to 
 feel. She looked back at the door to exchange 
 affectionate smiles with the dear, unselfish 
 fellow. 
 
 He watched the baby's pretty, quaint pretense 
 of " being mamma," and hearkened to the drip 
 and plash of the rain until the gnawing in his 
 stomach re-asserted itself importunately. He 
 knew what it meant. It was the demand of the 
 devil-appetite he had created long ago his Frank- 
 enstein, his Old Man of the Sea, his body of 
 death, lashed fast to him, lying down when he lay 
 down, rising up at his awakening, keeping step 
 with him, however he might try to flee. The lust 
 he had courted rashly now become flesh of his 
 flesh and bone of his bone. 
 
 His wife had carried off the phial of opium. 
 But he had secreted a supply of the drug for such
 
 198 MR. WA YT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 emergencies since she had found out the phos- 
 phate device and privately confiscated the stout 
 blue bottle. He always carried a small Greek 
 Testament in his hip pocket. Mrs. Wayt's furtive 
 search of his clothes every night, after making 
 sure that he was asleep, had not extended to the 
 removal of the sacred volume. 
 
 He arose stealthily, steadied his reeling head 
 by holding hard to the back of his neck with one 
 hand, while the other caught at the chairs and 
 bed-foot ; tiptoed to the closet, found his black 
 cloth pantaloons, drew out the Testament, and ex- 
 tracted from the depths beneath a wad of silken, 
 rustleless paper. Within was a lump of dark 
 brown paste. 
 
 " Tan'y ! tan'y ! " twittered Annie's sweet, small 
 pipe. " Give baby a piece ! p'ease, dee papa ! " 
 
 He hurried back into bed. If the child were 
 overheard Hetty might look in. And Hester's 
 sharp ears were across the hall. 
 
 "No, baby; papa has no candy." He was so 
 startled and unmanned that he had to wet his 
 lips with a tongue almost as parched before he 
 could articulate. " Papa's head aches badly. 
 Will Annie sing him to sleep ? " 
 
 Hester heard, through her stupor of misery, the 
 weak little voice and the thump of the low rock- 
 ing chair as baby crooned to the dolly cuddled in 
 her arms and to " dee papa," the song learned 
 from Hester's self :
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 199 
 
 " S'eep, baby, s'eep. 
 
 The angels watch 'y s'eep. 
 The fairies s'ake 'e d'eamlancl t'ee, 
 An' all'e d'eams 'ey fall ow'ee. 
 
 S'eep, baby, s'eep ! " 
 
 The rain fell straight and strong. The heavy 
 pour had beaten all motion out of the air, but the 
 gurgling of water pipes and the resonance of the 
 tinned roof gave the impression of a tumultuous 
 storm. Through the register and chimney arose 
 a far-off humming from the cellar, where Homer 
 was " redding up." Hester's acute ears divided 
 the sound into notes and words : 
 
 " An' we buried her deep, yes ! deep among the rocks. 
 On the banks of the Orna-ha ! " 
 
 Annie stopped singing. " Dolly mus* lie down 
 in her twadle, an' mamma mate her some tea ! " 
 Hester heard her say. At another time she 
 would have speculated, perhaps anxiously, as to 
 the processes going on when the clatter of metal 
 and the tinkle of china arose, accompanied by the 
 fitful bursts of song and a monologue of ex- 
 clamations. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! tate tare, dee papa ! " came pres- 
 ently in a frightened tone. Then louder : " Papa ! 
 dee papa ! wate up ! you'll det afire ! "
 
 200 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 
 
 Wee feet raced across the hall, a round face, red 
 and scared, appeared in the doorway. 
 
 " Hetter ! Hetter ! turn, wate up dee papa ! 'E 
 bed is on fire ! " 
 
 Through the doors left open behind her Hester 
 saw a lurid glare, a column of smoke. 
 
 Shrieking for help at the top of her feeble lungs 
 she plied the levers of her chair and rolled rapidly 
 into the burning room. Upon the table at the 
 foot of the bed had stood the spirit lamp and 
 copper teakettle used by Mrs. Wayt in heating 
 her husband's phosphate draughts at night. 
 Annie had lighted the lamp and contrived to 
 knock it over upon the bed. The alcohol had 
 ignited and poured over the counterpane. 
 
 Mr. Wayt lay, unstirring, amid the running 
 flames. Hester made straight for him, leaned far 
 out of her chair, to pull off the blazing covers, 
 " Papa ! papa ! papa ! " 
 
 He had not heard the word from her in ten 
 years. He was not to hear it now. 
 
 Mrs. Wayt, Hetty, March Gilchrist, and the 
 servants, rushing to the spot, found father and 
 child enwrapped in the same scorching pall. 
 
 " Mr. Wayt died at midnight," reported the 
 Fairhill papers. "He never regained conscious- 
 ness. The heroic daughter who lost her life in 
 attempting to rescue a beloved parent lived until 
 daybreak.
 
 MR. WAYT'S WIFE'S SISTER. 2OI 
 
 " ' They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, 
 and in their deaths they were not divided.' " 
 
 " I must be going, dear heart ! " whispered 
 Hetty's namechild, as the August dawn, made 
 faint by showers, glimmered through the windows. 
 " I cannot see you. Would Mr. March mind kiss- 
 ing me ' good-by ' ? " 
 
 " Mind ? " He could not restrain the great sob. 
 A tear fell with the kiss. 
 
 " Dear little friend ! my sweet sister ! " 
 
 The glorious eyes, darkened by death and 
 almost sightless, widened in turning toward him. 
 She smiled radiantly. 
 
 "Thank you for calling me that. Now, Miss 
 May ! And poor mamma ! I wish I had been a 
 better child to you ! Hetty, dearest ! hold me 
 fast and kiss me last of all ! You will be very 
 happy, darling ! But you won't forget me will 
 you ? I heard the doctors say " a gleam of the 
 old fantastic humor playing about her mouth 
 " that I had swallowed the flame. I think they 
 were right for the bitterness is all burned- 
 out of my heart ! "
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 " I KNOW it is horrid to swoop down upon you 
 at this barbarously early hour, but I couldn't help 
 coming the minute I received your card. We 
 get our mail at the breakfast table, and I fairly 
 screamed with joy when I opened the envelope. 
 ' Jack ! ' I said, 'who do you think has come to 
 New York to live ? ' 
 
 " ' The Picanninnies and the Joblillies and the 
 Garyulies, and probably the grand Panjandrum 
 himself,' said my gentleman. 
 
 " You know what a tease he is. Oh, no, you 
 don't ! for you never met him. But you will be- 
 fore long ! ' Better than all of them put together, 
 with the little round button on top,' said I. (You 
 see I am used to his chaff ! ) ' My very dearest 
 school friend, of whom you have heard me talk 
 ten thousand times Susie Barnes, now Mrs. 
 Cornell. She has been living five years in Brook- 
 lyn (and I've always declared I'd rather go to 
 Canada than to Brooklyn) and here's her card 
 telling me that she has returned to civilization.
 
 204 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 Mrs. Arthur Hayward Cornell, No. West Sixty- 
 seventh St.' At that he pricked up his ears. 
 
 " ' That's the new cashier in the Pin and Needle 
 Bank,' says he. ' Somebody was talking of him 
 at the Club last night.' And nothing would do 
 but I must tell him all about you. In going over 
 the story and thinking of the dear old times, my 
 heart got so warm and full that I rushed off by 
 the time he was out of the house." 
 
 Mrs. John Hitt, a well-dressed, prettyish woman, 
 whom the cold morning light showed to be also 
 a trifle society-worn, embraced her hostess anew, 
 and then held her off at arm's length for inspec- 
 tion. 
 
 " You sweet old girl ! what sort of life have you 
 led that you have kept your roses, your dimples, 
 and the sparkle in your eyes all these years? Do 
 you know that you are absolutely bewitching?" 
 
 The lately recovered friend smiled, coloring as 
 a woman of Mrs. Hitt's world could not have 
 done. 
 
 " You are the same impulsive Kitty ! " she said 
 affectionately. " I have had a quiet, busy, happy 
 life with Arthur and the children. Three babies 
 in five years do not give a housekeeper much time 
 for anything but domestic duties." 
 
 " I should think not, indeed ! " The shiver of 
 shoulders was well-executed, the heavenward cast 
 of eyes and hands dramatic. " I wonder you live 
 to tell it ! One child in six years has been enough
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 205 
 
 to unsettle my wits. Now that you are once more 
 within my reach (Oh, you darling /) we must 
 make up for lost time and see a great deal of each 
 other ! Do you ever sing nowadays ? Or have 
 you let your music go to the dogs ? I suppose 
 so, if Providence has interfered to save your wild- 
 rose complexion. I was raving to Jack this 
 morning over the voice you used to have, and 
 your genius for theatricals and all that. ' Indeed,' 
 said I, ' there was nothing that girl couldn't do.' 
 To think of wasting such an organ, or wearing it 
 thin in crooning nursery ditties." 
 
 Mrs. Cornell laughed a soft, merry burst of 
 amusement, at which the other eyed her curiously. 
 
 " You behave less like an exhumed corpse than 
 anybody could imagine who knew of your five 
 years in Brooklyn, and the three younglings. 
 What amuses you ? " 
 
 " Nothing, except yourdetermination to regard 
 me as dead, buried, and resurrected. So far from 
 giving up my music, I have practiced more stead- 
 ily than if I had spent more evenings abroad. 
 You know I studied vocal and instrumental music 
 with the intention of making it my profession. 
 Arthur agrees with me that what is once learned 
 should never be lost. Then, when my little girls 
 are ready to be taught, I can instruct them myself. 
 We had a number of musical friends in Brooklyn, 
 and a pleasant circle of acquaintances. We have 
 not lived in Hoboken" cried the hostess in whim-
 
 206 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 sical vexation. " I don't see why New Yorkers 
 always talk of Brooklyn as if it were as far off and 
 as much a terra incognita as the moon. We are 
 inhabitants of the same planet as yourselves." 
 
 The visitor patted the back of her companion's 
 hand, soothingly. " You are a New Yorker now 
 one of us!" she purred. "In six months you 
 would as soon cross the Styx as the East River, 
 even on that overgrown, preposterous Bridge the 
 Brooklynites give themselves such airs over. 
 How prettily settled you are ! " staring, rather 
 than glancing about the apartment. " These are 
 nice drawing rooms and furnished in excellent 
 taste." 
 
 Mrs. Cornell had regarded them as " parlors," 
 but her first concession to Mrs. Hitt's better 
 knowledge was to look accustomed to the new 
 term. She fought down with equal success the 
 impulse to classify Kitty's open admiration with 
 the amiable patronage of which Brooklyn people 
 are inclined to suspect New Yorkers. She plumed 
 herself modestly upon her taste in house-furnish- 
 ing and upon the ability to make cheap things 
 look as if they had cost a good deal. She had 
 withheld the fact of the change of residence from 
 metropolitan acquaintances until her house was 
 in order that might defy unfavorable criticism. 
 It was kind in Kitty to run in so unceremoniously 
 and to be glad of the chance to renew their early 
 intimacy. In spite of Arthur and the children,
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 207 
 
 she had begun to be somewhat homesick in the 
 great whirling world about her. 
 
 "Like a chip in the Atlantic Ocean!" Thus 
 she had described her sensations to her husband 
 that very morning. " I suppose I shall get used 
 to it after a while, especially as Brooklyn and New 
 York are, to all intents and purposes, one and the 
 same city." 
 
 She asserted it stoutly, knowing all the while 
 that Moscow and New Orleans were as nearly 
 homogeneous. 
 
 Yes ! Kitty was heartily welcome to the 
 stranger in an unknown territory. Mrs. Hitt was 
 not intellectual, and judged by standards Arthur 
 Cornell's wife had come to revere sincerely, she 
 was not especially refined in speech and bearing. 
 Or were Susie's tastes too quiet and her ideas 
 old-fashioned, that her interlocutor's crisp sayings 
 sounded pert, and the bright brown eyes and 
 fixed flush upon the cheekbones were artificially 
 aggressive ? Her former chum had always been 
 warm-hearted, if inconveniently outspoken. And 
 she was a New Yorker, and fashionable. Susie's 
 cherished ambition, unavowed even to Arthur 
 while it was expedient for them to live simply, 
 was to be fashionable, brilliant, and courted a 
 member in good and regular standing in the 
 Society of which Mrs. Sherwood lectured, and 
 Ellen Olney Kirk wrote, and to which Jenkyns 
 Knickerbocker was au fait. A certain some-
 
 zo8 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 thing that was not air or tone, deportment or 
 attire, and yet partook of all these as pot-pourri 
 of rose-breath, spices, and perfumed oils marked 
 Kitty Hitt as an habitude of the charmed Reserve. 
 She was not, perhaps, one of the Four Hundred 
 selected from the Upper Ten Thousand by proc- 
 esses as arbitrary, to human judgment, as those 
 by which Gideon's three hundred were picked 
 out from the hosts of Israel. Susie was no 
 simpleton, albeit ambitious. Mr. Hitt was a 
 stockbroker ; hence manifestly in the line of 
 promotion, but there were degrees of elevation 
 upon even Olympus. Her imagination durst not 
 lift eyes to the cloud-wreathed summit where 
 chief gods held revel, guarded from vulgar intru- 
 sion by Gabriel Macallister. The climate and 
 manner of life a few leagues lower down would, 
 as she felt, suit her better than the rarified atmos- 
 phere of the extremest heights. She had always 
 meant to climb, and successfully, when time and 
 opportunity should serve. From the moment 
 the passage of the river was determined upon as 
 a business necessity, she felt intuitively that 
 both of these were near. 
 
 " We think them cozy ! " she assented quietly 
 to the visitor's praise of her 'rooms. 
 
 " Cozy ! they are lovely ! " 
 
 While she talked she raised her eye-glasses to 
 make note of some fine etchings upon the walls 
 and a choice water-color upon an easel, and took
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 209 
 
 in, in passing, the circumstance that the rugs laid 
 upon the polished floor were of prime quality, 
 although neither large nor numerous. 
 
 " I do hope you don't mean to shut yourself up 
 in your pretty cage as so many pattern wives 
 and mothers particularly Brooklyn women " 
 (roguishly) " do ? That's the reason American 
 society is so crude and colorless. With your face 
 and figure and accomplishments (I haven't for- 
 gotten how divinely you recite) you ought to 
 become a Social Success a star in the world of 
 Society. You ought indeed ! " drowning the 
 feeble murmur of dissent. " There's many a so- 
 named leader of the gay world who doesn't hold, 
 and who never did hold such a card. Just trust 
 yourself to me, and I will prove all I promise." 
 
 " But, my dear Kitty, I lack the Open Sesame 
 to the Gotham Innermost Money ! Only the 
 repeatedly-millionaired can pass the outer courts." 
 
 " There it is ! Epigrams and bon-mots drop 
 from your lips as pearls and diamonds used to 
 tumble out whenever the good little girl in the 
 Fairy-tale opened her mouth. As to millions of 
 money bah ! " with a gesture of royal disdain. 
 " Our best people are not the richest. The true 
 New Yorker knows that. Of course one must 
 live and dress well, but your husband's means 
 amply warrant that. Jack says cashiers get from 
 ten to fifteen thousand dollars a year. Your 
 face, your manner, and your talents are all the
 
 210 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 passport you require when once you are intro- 
 duced. I claim the privilege of doing it. And, 
 as an initial step, I want you and Mr. Cornell to 
 dine with us to-morrow evening. I'll ask six or 
 eight of the nicest people I know to meet you. 
 They'll excuse the shortness of the notice when 
 they see what a reason I have for calling them 
 together. Put on a pretty gown and look your 
 loveliest and bring along some music. I mean 
 that you shall capture all hearts. I shall be 
 grieved to the quick if you don't. The hour will 
 be seven sharp. Punctuality is the soul of good 
 humor in a dinner company. I must run away. 
 I have an appointment with a tyrannical dress- 
 maker at half-past ten ; Mr. Lincoln's Literature 
 Class at eleven ; a luncheon at half-past one ; and 
 afternoon tea, anywhere from four to six ; a 
 dinner party, and after that the opera. Such a 
 whirl ! Yet, as I say to Jack when he grumbles 
 that we never have a quiet home evening it is 
 the only life worth living, as you'll own when 
 you've had a taste of it ! (You dear thing ! it 
 rests my tired eyes just to look at you !) Here's 
 Jack's card for Mr. Cornell. I'm just dying to 
 see him and if he is good enough for you." 
 
 " A great deal too good ! " ejaculated Susie, 
 earnestly, through this accidental gap in the 
 monologue. " The dearest, most generous 
 fellow ! " 
 
 " Cela va sans dire with the Brooklyn model !
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 21 1 
 
 I'm so happy that you are one of us, and no 
 longer a pattern article. Good-by ! " 
 
 " There ! I let her go without showing her the 
 children," reflected Mrs. Cornell, when she got 
 back her breath. " But we had so much to talk 
 of it is no wonder we forgot them. There are no 
 friends like the old friends. How unjust we are 
 sometimes ! I came near not sending her my 
 card because she had never been over to Brooklyn 
 to see me all the while I was there. And Arthur 
 advised me against doing it. He would have it 
 that it is no further from New York to Brook- 
 lyn than from Brooklyn to New York. He pre- 
 dicted, too, that she would never come to see me 
 here. He says there's no other memory so short 
 as that of a woman who has risen fast upon 
 the social ladder. This ought to be a lesson in 
 Christian charity to us both. Kitty's heart is 
 always in the right place." 
 
 With a becoming mantling of rose-pink in her 
 cheeks, she went singing about her " drawing " 
 rooms, altering the angle of chairs and sofas, 
 and the arrangement of bric-a-brac, already view- 
 ing her appointments through Kitty's eye-glasses. 
 Her thoughts were running upon the projected 
 dinner party. She was the proud owner of a 
 black velvet gown with a trained skirt, and a 
 V-shaped front, and of dainty laces wherewith to 
 fill the triangle. She had a diamond pin and ear- 
 rings wedding gifts from the wealthy aunt for
 
 212 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 whom she was named. The same generous rela- 
 tive had bestowed upon her, at different holiday 
 seasons, the rugs and pictures that adorned her 
 house. Aunt Susan might always be depended 
 upon to do the handsome thing, and she was 
 fond of this niece and her " steady " husband. 
 The home of Susie's girlhood had been more 
 plainly furnished, as Kitty had known and must 
 recollect. It was natural that the elegant grace 
 characterizing Mrs. Cornell's abode should mis- 
 lead the shrewd observer in the estimate of the 
 cashier's income. Without surmising what had 
 suggested the remark, or that it was a " feeler," 
 Mrs. Cornell smiled, yet a little uneasily, in recall- 
 ing it. 
 
 " Kitty is so used to hearing of big sums that 
 her ideas are vague on the subject of salaries," 
 meditated the better informed wife. " She 
 doesn't dream how handsomely people can live 
 on six thousand dollars. Or that we got along 
 on one-half that much in Brooklyn and laid aside 
 something yearly. It is none of my business to 
 set her right. Arthur doesn't care to have his 
 money affairs discussed." 
 
 It did not occur to her as a possibility that 
 from the pardonable disingenuousness any serious 
 trouble could ever arise, yet she knew what 
 Arthur would say. She heard, in imagination, 
 his warning: 
 
 " Never sail under false colors, Susie ! "
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 213 
 
 Therefore, in her animated description of call 
 and conversation, she omitted all mention of 
 Kitty's tentative allusion to their income. Not 
 knowing his wife's old comrade, he might think 
 her prying and impertinent in touching upon 
 such a subject at all. Poor, dear Kitty ! there 
 were disadvantages in being so impetuously frank. 
 A clear-headed cool reasoner like Arthur, for 
 instance, was almost sure to misread her. 
 
 As our heroine had told Kitty, her married life 
 had been quiet. Her vivacious friend would have 
 called it " stupid." The circle of congenial friends 
 had been circumscribed and most of them were 
 people of moderate means and desires. Brooklyn 
 might be called a segregation of neighborhoods, 
 each district having manners, customs, and social 
 code peculiar to the village that was its germ. 
 As one settlement ran into another, a city grew 
 that claims the respect of the mightier sister 
 across the river. The Cornells had lived in a 
 pleasant house in a pleasant street, and Susie had 
 spoken truly in saying that they lived well. With 
 no pretense of entertaining, they were cordially 
 hospitable, " having " friends to supper, or to 
 pass the evening, whenever fair occasion offered. 
 For the children's sake the mother took her 
 principal meal with them at one o'clock, but the 
 hearty tea prepared for the father who had 
 lunched frugally in town was invariably appetiz- 
 ing, being well cooked and daintily served. He
 
 214 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 had the privilege not always accorded to richer 
 men who sit down daily to late " course dinners" 
 that of bringing a crony home with him when- 
 ever he pleased. It was like Arthur Cornell to 
 choose as chance guests men who had not such 
 homes as his bank clerks from the country, 
 Bohemian artists of good character and light 
 purses, and the like. Such were the honored 
 recipients of the hostess' smile and warm hand- 
 shake. She had won the admiring reverence of 
 more than one homeless bachelor by her skill 
 in delicate and savory cookery and the gracious 
 friendliness of her welcome, and these, oftener 
 than any other class, composed the delighted 
 audience of the music Arthur called for every 
 evening. 
 
 Once or twice a month husband and wife went 
 to the theater or a concert, and twice or at the 
 most three times a year to the opera. They 
 were pretty sure to have complimentary tickets 
 to the water-color exhibition and other displays 
 of paintings in Brooklyn or New York. Of 
 receptions, they knew comparatively little except 
 such as followed weddings among their acquaint- 
 ances. Neither had ever attended a regular 
 dinner party gotten up by a professional caterer, 
 and the ladies' luncheon of eight, ten, or a dozen 
 courses was unknown by the seeing of the eyes 
 and the tasting of the palate to the bright woman 
 whose social successes in a new arena were fore-
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 815 
 
 told by the sanguine admirer who craved the 
 pleasure of bringing her out. There are still in 
 fast growing American cities tens of thousands 
 of such people who live honestly, comfortably, 
 and beneficently, and whose homes are refined 
 centers of happiness and goodness. 
 
 There was, then, cause for the wife's pleasura- 
 ble flutter of spirits and the doubtful satisfaction 
 expressed, against his intention, in the husband's 
 visage at the close prospect of a state banquet 
 given in honor of their undistinguished selves, at 
 which anonymous edibles would be washed down 
 with foreign wines, and spicy entries be punctu- 
 ated by spicy hors d'ceuvres. Arthur's predomi- 
 nant quality was sound sense, and as his spouse 
 had anticipated, his first emotion after hearing 
 her tale was wonder at the sudden and violent 
 increase of friendship consequent upon their 
 change of residence, in one who had apparently 
 forgotten the unimportant fact of her favorite 
 schoolfellow's existence for more than five 
 years. 
 
 " I can't imagine why she should care to take 
 us up now," he demurred. 
 
 Susie's ready flush testified to the hurt he had 
 dealt her pride or affections. She thought to the 
 latter. 
 
 " If you would only not let your prejudice 
 master your reason ! " she sighed. " All New 
 York women hate and dread ferries."
 
 ai6 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 " There is the Bridge ! " put in the Brooklyn- 
 born literalist. 
 
 " Which would have taken visitors miles away 
 from us. I was afraid you would wet-blanket 
 the whole affair. I really dreaded to tell you of 
 what I was silly enough to look forward to with 
 pleasure. You see you don't know what a fine, 
 genuine creature Kitty is. But we won't dispute 
 over her or her dinner party. I can write to her 
 and say that we regret our inability to accept the 
 invitation." 
 
 Arthur closed his teeth upon another struggling 
 sentence. Although even less of a society man 
 than she was of a society woman, he had a definite 
 impression that invitations to dinner were usually 
 sent out some days in advance of the " occasion." 
 Less distinct, because intuitive, was the idea that 
 gay young women, already laden with social obli- 
 gations, did not press attentions upon everyday 
 folk from Brooklyn, E. D., unless they hoped to 
 gain something by it, or were addicted to patron- 
 age. The former hypothesis being, as he con- 
 ceived, untenable, it followed that Mrs. Hitt, a 
 good-natured rattle, must have said more than 
 she meant of her intentions toward the strangers, 
 or that she had a native fondness for playing the 
 lady patroness. 
 
 Loving and admiring his wife from the full 
 depths of a quiet heart, he held all this back. 
 Susie was vivacious, ready of wit and speech, and
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 217 
 
 he was not. She dearly enjoyed excitement and 
 new acquaintances. Give him dressing jacket, 
 slippers, and an interesting book, or his wife's 
 music and his own fireside, and he would not 
 have exchanged places with Ward Macallister at 
 his complacent best. Susie would shine any- 
 where ; she was born to it ! He was not even a 
 first-class reflector of her rays. Yet this noblest 
 of women had stood by him with cheerful gallan- 
 try in their less prosperous days. He had told 
 her over and over that she had hidden her light 
 under a bushel in becoming the mistress of such 
 a home as he had to give her, but she had loyally 
 denied this, and borne her part bravely in the 
 struggle to lap the non-elastic ends of their com- 
 mon income. To her capital management he 
 owed much of their present comfort. 
 
 Arthur Cornell reasoned slowly, but always in a 
 straight line. 
 
 " I am a selfish, brutal fellow, darling," he said 
 at this point of his cogitations. " I am afraid I 
 am a little tired to-night. We have had a busy 
 day at the Bank. You mustn't mind my growls. 
 When we have had sup dinner, I would say! 
 you'll find me more than willing to listen and 
 sympathize." 
 
 Her satisfactory answer was to come over and 
 kiss him silently, taking his head between her 
 hands and laying her cheek upon it. The hair 
 was getting thin on the top, and the gaslight
 
 2l8 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 brought into gleaming conspicuousness a few gray 
 hairs. He was older than she by nine years. 
 It would not be surprising if, for a long time yet, 
 he continued to say" supper " instead of " dinner." 
 She was certain he would never learn to talk of 
 the " drawing room." But he was her very own, 
 and dearly beloved, and the kindest, noblest 
 fellow in the world. Whatever he might do or 
 say, she could never be angry with or ashamed 
 of him.
 
 PART II. 
 
 THE evening meal an excellent one, to which 
 Mr. Cornell did ample justice was over. Father 
 and mother, as was their custom, had visited the 
 nursery in company, heard the children's prayers, 
 and kissed them "good-night." The orderly 
 household had settled down into cheerful quiet 
 that fell like dew upon weary nerves. Susie went 
 to the piano presently and played a pensive noc- 
 turne, then sang softly a couple of Arthur's favor- 
 ite ballads. The night was blustering, and in the 
 silence succeeding the music, the wedded pair, 
 seated before the soft-coal fire in the back parlor, 
 heard the hurrying tread of passers-by echoing 
 sharply from the frozen stones. 
 
 Arthur ended the restful pause. His choice of 
 a theme and the lightness of his tone were heroic. 
 
 " Low neck and short sleeves for me to- 
 morrow night, I suppose, old lady ? That is to 
 say, claw-hammer, and low-cut vest. It's lucky 
 I had them made for Lou Wilson's wedding last 
 winter. There wouldn't be time to get up the 
 proper rig, and regrets based upon ' No dress- 
 coat ' would be rather awkward." 
 
 " Decidedly! No man of whatever age should
 
 220 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 be without one," rejoined the nascent fashionist. 
 " Some men never sit down to dinner except in 
 evening dress. It must be very nice to live in 
 that way. I like such graceful ceremony in every- 
 day customs." 
 
 Arthur cast about for something neater to say 
 than the dismayed ejaculation bitten off just in 
 time. 
 
 " It must help a fellow to feel altogether at his 
 ease in his company accouterments " inspiration 
 coming in the nick of time. " Most men look, 
 and, judging by myself, feel like newly imported 
 restaurant waiters when decked out in their 
 swallow-tails." 
 
 The conventional " dress coat " is a shrewd test 
 of innate gentlehood. A thoroughbred is never 
 more truly one than when thus appareled. The 
 best it can do for the plebeian, who would prefer 
 to eat his dinner in his shirt-sleeves, is to bring 
 him up to the level of a hotel waiter. 
 
 Arthur looked like an unassuming gentleman 
 on the following evening, when he joined his wife 
 below-stairs. If he had not an air of fashion, he 
 had not a touch of the vulgarian. Susie's mien 
 was, as he assured her, that of a queen. Her 
 head was set well above a pair of graceful 
 shoulders, she carried herself and managed her 
 train cleverly. Arthur had brought her a cluster 
 of pink roses, all of which she wore in her cor- 
 sage except one bud which she pinned in his
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 221 
 
 buttonhole. He put a careful finger under her 
 chin, and lifted her face to let the full light of the 
 chandelier rain upon it. 
 
 41 It would have been a pity to keep you all to 
 myself to-night," he said. 
 
 The weather was raw, with menace of rain or 
 snow, but neither of them thought of the extrav- 
 agance of a carriage. As she had done upon 
 previous festal occasions, the wife looped up the 
 trailing breadths of velvet, and secured them into 
 a " walking length " of skirt with safety pins. 
 Over her gala attire she cast a voluminous water- 
 proof, buttoned all the way down the front. A 
 bonnet would have deranged her coiffure, and she 
 wore, instead, a black Spanish lace scarf knotted 
 under her chin. Slippers and light gloves went 
 in a reticule slung upon her arm. 
 
 It lacked five minutes of seven when they 
 alighted from a street-car within a block of the 
 Hitts* abode. Four carriages were in line before 
 the door, and from these stepped men swathed in 
 long, light ulsters, who assisted to alight and 
 ascend the stone steps apparitions in furred and 
 embroidered opera cloaks that ravished Susie's 
 wits, in the swift transit of the gorgeous beings 
 from curbstone to the hospitable entrance. A 
 dizzying sensation of unreality, such as one ex- 
 periences in finding himself unexpectedly upon a 
 great height, seized upon her. Could these peo- 
 ple be collected to meet her? Humbled, yet
 
 222 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 elated, she entered the house, and obeying the 
 directions of the footman at the foot of the stairs, 
 mounted to the dressing room. 
 
 Four women in such elaborate toilets that our 
 heroine felt forthwith like a crow among birds-of- 
 paradise, glanced carelessly over their shoulders 
 at her without suspending their chatter to one 
 another, and went on talking and shaking out 
 their draperies. Each, in resigning her wraps to 
 the maids in waiting, stepped forth ready for 
 drawing-room parade. Susie retreated to a corner 
 and began hurriedly to disembarrass herself of 
 her waterproof and to let down her skirt. A maid 
 followed her presently. 
 
 " Can I help you ? " professionally supercilious. 
 
 " Thank you. If you would be so good as to 
 take off my boots, I should be obliged." 
 
 The formula was ill-advised and justified the 
 heightened hauteur of the smart Abigail. With 
 pursed mouth and disdainful finger-tips, she 
 removed the evidences that the wearer had 
 trudged over muddy streets to get here, and as 
 gingerly fitted on the dry slippers. The heat in 
 Susie's cheeks scorched the delicate skin when 
 she found that the time consumed in her prepara- 
 tions had detained her above-stairs after every- 
 body else had gone down. And Kitty had 
 enjoined punctuality ! She met her husband in 
 the upper hall with a distressed look. 
 
 " We are horribly late," she whispered.
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 223 
 
 " I don't suppose it makes any difference," 
 responded he to comfort her. "It's fashionable 
 to be late, isn't it?" 
 
 "Not at dinners," she had barely time to 
 admonish him when they crossed the threshold 
 of the drawing room. 
 
 Kitty advanced with empressement to meet 
 them, but that they were behind time was mani- 
 fest from the celerity with which she introduced 
 her husband, and without the interval of a second, 
 the man who was to take Mrs. Cornell in to dinner. 
 Then she whisked Mr. Cornell up to a dried-up 
 little woman in pearl-colored velvet, presented 
 him, asked him to take charge of her into the 
 dining room, herself laid hold of another man's 
 arm, and signaled her husband to lead the way. 
 
 Arthur seldom lost his perceptive and reason- 
 ing faculties, and having read descriptions of state 
 dinners and breakfasts, bethought himself that 
 had his wife and himself been in truth chief 
 guests, they would have been paired off with host 
 and hostess. Moreover, although there was a 
 vast deal of talking at table and he did his con- 
 scientious best to make conversation with the 
 velvet-clad mummy consigned to him, he had all 
 the time the feeling of being left out in the cold. 
 Nobody addressed him directly in word, or in- 
 directly by glance, and at length, in gentlemanly 
 despair of diverting the attention of his fair com- 
 panion from her plate to himself, he let her eat in
 
 324 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 peace and pleased himself by comparing the rosy, 
 piquant face of his wife with the bismuth-and- 
 rouge-powdered visages to the right, left, and front 
 of her. Susie seemed to be getting on swim- 
 mingly. The man next to her was chatting gayly, 
 and evidently recognized a responsive spirit in his 
 fair companion. How easily and naturally she 
 met his advances, and how gracefully she fitted 
 into her novel position ! What were pomps and 
 vanities to him accorded with her tastes. Again 
 he thought how niggardly would have been the 
 refusal to allow her to take the place she so 
 adorned. 
 
 Not even love's eye penetrated the doughty 
 visor she kept jealously closed throughout the 
 meal. To begin with, she took the -wrong fork 
 for the raw oysters ! As course succeeded course, 
 the dreadful implement, in style so unlike those 
 left beside other plates, actually grinned at her 
 with every prong. Everybody must be aware of 
 the solecism and deduce the truth that this was 
 her first dinner party. She was sure that she 
 caught the waiters exchanging winks over the 
 fork, and that out of sheer malice, they allowed 
 the tell-tale to lie in full sight. The apprehension 
 that she would eventually be compelled to use 
 the frail absurdity or leave untouched some- 
 thing meat or game, perhaps assailed her. 
 While she hearkened to the flippant nothings her 
 escort mistook for elegant small-talk, and plucked
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 225 
 
 up heart for repartee, hot and cold sweats broke 
 out all over her. Had she obeyed inclination that 
 approximated frenzy at times, she would have 
 crept under the table and rolled over on the floor 
 in anguished mortification. If her sleight-of-hand 
 had been equal to the rash adventure, she would 
 have pocketed the wretched bugbear in despera- 
 tion akin to that which makes the murderer fling 
 far from him the weapon with which the deed 
 was done. 
 
 When the ghastly petty torture was ended by 
 the removal of the obnoxious article, and the sub- 
 stitution of one larger, plainer, and less obvious, 
 the poor woman could have kissed the perfunc- 
 tory hand that lifted the incubus from her soul. 
 
 She made other blunders, but none that were 
 so glaring as this. Each was a lesson and a 
 stimulus to perfect herself in the minutics of social 
 etiquette. Before long, she would need no school- 
 ing ; would lead, instead of following. She would 
 know better another time, too, how to dress her- 
 self. Kitty's gown of cream-colored faille, 
 flounced with lace ; the pale blue brocade of one 
 woman, and the pink-and-silver bravery of a third, 
 the maize velvet and black lace of the dowager 
 across the table, and the mauve-and-white marvel 
 of still another toilet, threw her apparel into 
 blackest shade. She caught herself hoping people 
 would think that she was in slight mourning. 
 Besides her allotted attendant nobody at table
 
 226 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 spoke a word to her, but Kitty shot many a smile 
 at her during the feast, and nodded several times 
 in significance that might be approval or reassur- 
 ance. Mr. Hitt, a rather handsome man with 
 big, bold eyes, looked hard at her now and then, 
 but did not accost her, even after he grew talk- 
 ative under the faster flow of wine. His glasses 
 were filled so often and emptied so quickly that 
 Susie wondered to see his wife's smiling uncon- 
 cern. Perhaps she had faith in the strength of 
 his brain. 
 
 Arthur did not touch one of the five chalices of 
 different shapes and colors flanking his plate, and 
 Susie was weak enough, perceiving that his con- 
 duct in this respect was exceptional, to feel morti- 
 fied by his eccentricity. It was in bad taste, she 
 thought, to offer tacit censure of the practice of 
 host and fellow-guests. To nullify the unfavor- 
 able impression of her husband's singularity, she 
 sipped from each of her glasses, and dipped so 
 deeply into the iced champagne which cooled thirst 
 excited by highly seasoned viands, the heated 
 room and agitation of spirits, that her bloom was 
 more vivid when she arose from dinner than when 
 she sat down. She was quite at ease now, and 
 enjoying, with the zest of an artistic nature, the 
 features of the novel scene. 
 
 The tempered light streaming over and repeated 
 by silver, china, and cut-glass ; the flower-borders 
 that criss-crossed the lace table-cover laid over
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 227 
 
 rose-colored satin, the superb costumes of the 
 women and the faultless garments of the men ; 
 the rapid, noiseless exchange of one delicacy for 
 another, some of the dishes being as new to her 
 as would have been an entree of peacocks' brains 
 or a salmi oi nightingales' tongues were fascinat- 
 ing to one whose love of the picturesque and 
 beautiful was a passion. This was the sort of 
 thing she had read of in English novels and 
 American newspapers, the enchanting mode of 
 life for which she had yearned secretly, the atmos- 
 phere in which she should have been born. 
 
 The return in feminine file to the drawing room 
 of part of the company was a stage of the pageant 
 with which Jane Eyre's life at Thornhill, and 
 Annie Edwards' and Ouida's stories of hospitality 
 at English country houses had made her familiar. 
 She hoped nobody else noticed Arthur's surprised 
 stare, as the men arose and remained standing, 
 with no movement in the direction of the escap- 
 ing fair ones. With flutter and buzz and silken 
 rustle, the dames swept through the hall back 
 into the drawing room and disposed themselves 
 upon couches and in easy-chairs, where tiny 
 glasses of perfumed liqueur were handed to them. 
 
 " Exactly like a story of Oriental life," mused 
 entranced Susie. 
 
 Now, for the first time, Kitty had the oppor- 
 tunity to show to her school-friend the pointed 
 and peculiar attentions the rhapsodies of yester-
 
 228 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 day had authorized her to expect. Up to this 
 moment nobody had been introduced to her 
 except the man who took her to dinner. 
 
 " I must have you know all these friends of 
 mine," she purred, taking Susie's hand in both of 
 hers, and leading her with engaging " gush " up 
 to the mauve-and-white marvel. 
 
 "Mrs. Vansittart, this is my dear old school- 
 fellow, Mrs. Cornell, who is going to play some- 
 thing for us now, and after a while, to sing several 
 somethings, and when our audience is enlarged 
 by the return of the men to us lorn women, she 
 will, if properly entreated, give us some of her 
 charming recitations. Ah ! you may well look 
 surprised. It is granted to few women to com- 
 bine so many talents, but when you have heard 
 her, you will see that I do not promise too much. 
 
 " Mrs. Roberts ! " to the symphony in pink- 
 and-silver " I bespeak your admiration for my 
 friend and school-crony" etc., etc., until the 
 blushing debutante was the focus of six pairs of 
 eyes, critical, indifferent, and amiable, and wished 
 that dear Kitty were not so incorrigibly enthusi- 
 astic in praising those she loved. 
 
 Anyone but a refined novice would have 
 divined at once that the act of passing her around, 
 like a plate of hot cakes, argued one of two 
 things either that she was a " professional " of 
 some sort, or that her hostess was lamentably 
 ignorant of the law demanding that the one to be
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 229 
 
 honored by an introduction should stand still and 
 have the other party to the ceremony brought to 
 her. Kitty, at least, was no novice, and every- 
 body except her " school-crony " comprehended 
 exactly what the scene meant. Although she 
 did not suspect it, she was on trial when she sat 
 down to the piano, the show-woman beside her, 
 as the guileless guest supposed, to give her affec- 
 tionate encouragement. The first flash of her 
 fingers across the keys was the signal for general 
 silence, and the clapping of gloved hands at the 
 conclusion of the brilliant overture attested intel- 
 ligent appreciation. She was not allowed to 
 leave the music stool for half an hour, one piece 
 after another being called for, and the choice of 
 selections putting her on her mettle. Her audi- 
 tors were used to good music, and the assumption 
 that she would gratify them was a delicate com- 
 pliment. 
 
 Kitty came to her elbow at length with a glass 
 of clear liquid, sparkling with pounded ice. 
 
 " Only lime-juice and water," she whispered, 
 " to clear your voice. I have praised your sing- 
 ing until everybody is wild to hear you." 
 
 Susie smiled happily, glancing over her shoul- 
 der with an unconscious and graceful gesture of 
 gratitude ; a bow, slight, but comprehensive, she 
 might have but had not copied from a popular 
 prima donna. Another rapid run of the nimble 
 fingers over the responsive ivory, and she glided
 
 230 A SOCIAL SUCCESS, 
 
 into the prelude to Gounod's never-trite song, 
 " Chaniez ! Riez ! Dormez ! " 
 
 She had sung but a few bars when her ear 
 caught the muffled tread of feet in the hall. A 
 side-glance at the mirror showed her a picture 
 that might have been clipped from her British 
 contes de socittS, the grouping of manly faces and 
 fashionable dress coats in the curtained arch, all 
 intent upon herself as the enchantress who held 
 them mute and eager. Electric fire streamed 
 through her veins, her voice soared and swelled 
 as never before ; her enunciation, exquisitely pure 
 and clear, carried each word up to the loftiest 
 story of the stilled mansion : 
 
 " Ah ! riez, ma belle ! riez ! riez, toujours ! " 
 
 " Fine, by Jove, now ! " cried a big mustached 
 man at Arthur's side, as the last notes died upon 
 ecstatic ears. "Patti couldn't have done it 
 better ! " 
 
 The husband repeated this with other encomi- 
 ums to the songstress after they got home. He 
 made the tired but animated little woman sit 
 down in an armchair and pulled off her rubbers 
 and unbuttoned her boots in far different fashion 
 from that in which the sleepy Abigail had put 
 them on the feet and helped truss up the train of 
 "the woman who hadn't come in a carriage like 
 decent folks." 
 
 He had had a stupid evening. He couldn't 
 make the women talk to him. He was not " a
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 23 * 
 
 ladies' man," and every mother's daughter of 
 them took in the truth at a glance. The men 
 gabbled over their wine of what did not interest 
 him, of clubs and horse races, and the fluctuations 
 of fancy stocks. He neither smoked nor drank, 
 and was the only man there who did not do both. 
 His wife's music was to him the only redeeming 
 feature of the occasion, and he would have 
 enjoyed that more in his own parlor. But she 
 was enraptured with everything and full of delight- 
 ful anticipations. " Everybody had been so nice 
 and kind, and what did ill-natured people mean 
 by saying there was no real sociability among 
 fashionable people ? For her part, she believed 
 that the higher one mounted in the social scale 
 the more genuine goodness and refined feeling 
 she would find." Several of the ladies had 
 promised to call upon her, and, as one said, " to 
 take her in with them." 
 
 Arthur hearkened silently. He had never been 
 able to give her such pleasures, a fact that smote 
 him hard when he saw how zestfully she drank of 
 the newly opened spring. He would not " wet- 
 blanket " her enthusiasm, so did not hint at a 
 discovery made to him by a chance remark of a 
 guest to the host. Invitations for this particular 
 dinner party had been out for ten days. 
 
 " Then Susie and I were second fiddles," in- 
 ferred the sensible cashier. " I wonder why she 
 asked us at all I "
 
 PART III. 
 
 MR. CORNELL'S unspoken suspicion that Mrs. 
 Hitt would drop her school-friend as suddenly as 
 she had picked her up was in a way to be falsified, 
 if the events of the next few months were to be 
 taken as testimony. 
 
 The two matrons were nearly inseparable 
 shopping, driving, walking, and visiting together. 
 For Susie had a New York visiting list speedily, 
 and almost every name stood for an introduction 
 by her indefatigable " trainer." The epithet was 
 the taciturn husband's, and, as may be surmised, 
 was never uttered audibly. Susie's wardrobe, 
 furniture, table her very modes of speech sus- 
 tained variations that amazed old friends and 
 confounded him who knew her best. The 
 cherished black velvet she had thought " hand- 
 some enough for any occasion " was pronounced 
 " quaintly becoming, but too old for the wearer by 
 twenty-five years." Slashed and dashed and 
 lashed with gold-color, it did duty as a house 
 evening gown. For small luncheons, she had a 
 tailor-made costume of fawn-colored cloth em- 
 broidered and combined with silk ; for " swell " 
 luncheons, a rich silk black ground relieved by 
 narrow crimson stripes, and made en demi-train.
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 233 
 
 For at-home afternoons were two tea gowns ; 
 before she received her second dinner invitation, 
 she had made oy Mrs. Hitt's dressmaker (" a 
 Frenchwoman who doesn't know enough yet to 
 charge American prices, my dear, and I hold it 
 to be a sin to throw money away ! ") a robe of 
 white brocade and sea-green velvet, in which garb 
 she showed like a moss-rose bud, according to her 
 dear friend and trumpeter. 
 
 These strides into the realm of fashion, if at 
 first startling to the debutante, were quickly 
 acknowledged to be imperatively necessary if one 
 would really live. Kitty's taste in dress approxi- 
 mated genius. Even she was hardly prepared 
 for the ready following of her neophyte. 
 
 Had she needed corroborative evidence of the 
 cashier's liberal income, his wife's command of 
 considerable sums supplied it. With all her 
 frankness, Mrs. Cornell did not confide to her 
 bosom-friend where she obtained the ready 
 money that gained her credit with new trades- 
 people. 
 
 Now and then an uneasy qualm stirred the 
 would-be comfortable soul of the wife as to how 
 much or how little Arthur speculated within his 
 sober soul upon the probable cost of her new out- 
 fit. There were two thousand dollars deposited 
 in her name, and drawing interest in a Brooklyn 
 Savings Bank. The rich aunt had given her name- 
 child three-quarters of it from time to time. The
 
 234 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 young couple had saved the rest, and it was 
 tacitly understood that it should not be touched 
 except of necessity. No landmark in her new 
 career was more pronounced than Susie's resort to 
 this fund for the equipment without which her 
 dawning social success would, she felt, lapse into 
 obscurity more ignominious than that from which 
 she had emerged. She must have the things 
 represented by the money, and intoxicated though 
 she was, she had still too much sense and con- 
 science to deplete her husband's purse to the 
 extent demanded by the exigency. He would 
 have opened an artery to gratify her, had heart's 
 blood been coin, but she knew he would look 
 grave and pained did he suspect her visits to the 
 Bank and their result. 
 
 He was sober enough, nowadays, without 
 additional cause of discomfort. When questioned, 
 he averred that all was going right at the Bank, 
 and that he was well. Nor would he confess to 
 loneliness on the evenings when she was obliged 
 to leave him in obedience to Kitty's summons to 
 rehearsal or consultation in some of the countless 
 schemes of amusement the two were all the while 
 concocting. 
 
 " Don't trouble yourself to come for me or to 
 sit up for me, dear," the pleasure-monger would 
 entreat in bidding him " good-by." "I'll have 
 one of the maids call for me," or " I have a car- 
 riage," or and after a time this was most fre-
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 235 
 
 quent of all " Jack Hitt is always very obliging 
 about bringing me home." 
 
 With a smile upon his lips and gravity she did 
 not read in his eyes, he would hand her to the 
 carriage, or commit her to the spruce maid, hop- 
 ing that she would have a pleasant evening, and 
 having stood upon the steps until she was no 
 longer in sight, would go back as she supposed 
 to sitting room or book. Whereas, it grew to be 
 more and more a habit with him to turn into the 
 nursery instead, and sit there in the dark until he 
 heard the bustle of her return below-stairs. He 
 invariably sat up for her she never asked why 
 or where. The fire burned cheerily to welcome 
 her, and the offices of maid, assumed, in the be- 
 ginning in loverly supererogation, half jest, half 
 caress, were now duty and habit. Upon one point 
 he was resolute. If she went to bed late, she 
 must sleep late next morning. This was a matter 
 of health, a concession she owed those to whom 
 her health was all-important. 
 
 The two older children had breakfasted with 
 their parents for a year, and he made much of 
 their company when their mother was not the 
 fourth of the party. Sometimes he sent for the 
 baby as well, holding her on his knee with one hand, 
 while the other managed coffee cup and toast. 
 
 Susie surprised him thus one morning, having 
 awakened unsummoned, and dressed hastily that 
 she might see him before he went out.
 
 23 6 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 " Arthur Cornell ! " The ejaculation was the 
 first intimation he had of her presence. " You 
 spoil the children and make a slave of yourself ! 
 Where is their nurse ? " 
 
 " Don't blame Ellen, dear ! " checking her 
 motion toward the bell. " I sent for the children. 
 They are very good, and I enjoy their com- 
 pany." 
 
 Mrs. Cornell flushed hotly ; her lips were com- 
 pressed. 
 
 " I understand ! After this, I will make a point 
 of giving you your breakfast. It was never my 
 wish to lie in bed until this hour." 
 
 " It was and is mine ! " rejoined her husband, 
 steadily, unmoved by her unwonted petulance. 
 " As it is, you are pale and heavy-eyed. You have 
 had but five hours of sleep." 
 
 " My head aches ! " passing her hand over her 
 forehead. "That will go off, by-and-by. Baby! 
 come to mamma, and let dear papa get his break- 
 fast in peace. Let me pour out a cup of hot 
 coffee for you, first." 
 
 Her softened tone and fond smile cleared the 
 atmosphere for them all. Arthur sunned himself 
 in her presence as a half-torpid bird on an early 
 spring day. The children prattled merrily in an- 
 swer to the pretty mother's blandishments ; the 
 baby stood up in her lap to make her fat arms 
 meet behind her neck. She looked pleadingly 
 into the proud face bent over mother and child.
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 237 
 
 He was startled to see that the sweet eyes were 
 misty. 
 
 " Dear! can't you go with me to-night?" 
 
 He fairly staggered at the unexpected appeal. 
 
 " If I had known " he began. 
 
 " Yes, I know ! I ought to have spoken before 
 you made your engagement. I was careless for- 
 getful silly ! I do nothing but silly things now- 
 adays. But I wish you could go, darling ! " 
 
 " I'm afraid it's impossible," said Arthur regret- 
 fully. " The president made a point of my attend- 
 ing the meeting. I am sorrier than you can be, 
 little wife." 
 
 She shook her head and tried to laugh. 
 
 " That shows how little you know about it ! 
 Don't make any more engagements without con- 
 sulting me. 'I'm ower young' not 'to leave 
 my mammy yet ' but to be running about the 
 world without my dear, old, steady-going hus- 
 band and I'm not willing to do it any longer." 
 
 He carried the memory of words and glance 
 with him all day. Coming home at evening, he 
 found a note from her, stating that Kitty had 
 sent for her. 
 
 " There is a dress rehearsal at seven," she 
 wrote. " I wish you could be there and see how 
 ravishing I can be! If your business meeting 
 is over by ten o'clock, won't you slip into society 
 toggery and come around in season to see 'the 
 old lady' home?"
 
 238 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 " The fever has run its course ! " thought the 
 husband, with kindling eyes. "I knew I should 
 get her back some day." 
 
 His dinner was less carefully served than in the 
 olden supper days, but he dined as with the gods, 
 and ran briskly upstairs to send Ellen down to 
 her meal while he undressed the children and put 
 them to bed. He had done this often during the 
 winter, pretending to make a joke of the disrob- 
 ing, but knowing it to be duty and vicarious. 
 According to his ideas the mother should see to 
 it in person. No hireling, whose own the bairns 
 are not, can care for them as those in whose veins 
 runs answering kindred blood. Usually, the task 
 was done in heaviness of spirit. To-night, no 
 effort was required to bring laughter to his lips, 
 lightness to his heart. To-morrow mamma would 
 breakfast with them, and resume her place in the 
 home, so poorly filled by him or anybody else. 
 She had come back to them. He tried to sing 
 one of her lullabies as he rocked the baby to 
 sleep, but failed by reason of a "catch in his 
 throat." Mamma would warble it like a night- 
 ingale to them to-morrow night. 
 
 The business meeting was unexpectedly brief 
 " Thanks," as the president was pleased to say, 
 " to the admirable epitome of the matter in hand 
 prepared and presented by Mr. Cornell." 
 
 At ten o'clock the husband was in his dressing 
 room, hurrying the process of " slipping into so-
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 239 
 
 ciety toggery." He repeated the phrase aloud 
 while tying his cravat with fingers uncertain from 
 nervous haste. He was thankful beyond expres- 
 sion that he had never cast the shadow of his dis- 
 approval over Susie's spirits, even when they 
 threatened to carry her out of the bounds of 
 reason. She was young and pretty ; so affluent 
 of vitality, so richly endowed with talents, that 
 a humdrum fellow like himself could not compre- 
 hend the stress of the temptation to plunge into 
 and riot in the mad vortex of social parade. 
 
 " If there were any one thing I could do as 
 cleverly as she does everything, I should be doing 
 it all the time," he confessed in contrite candor. 
 
 Yesterday he had thanked Heaven that Lent 
 was close upon the panting racers over the pleas- 
 ure grounds. Now, he was indifferent to the 
 advance and duration of the penitential season. 
 His darling had returned of her own right-headed, 
 right-hearted self to the sanctuary of home, having 
 detected, unaided by his pessimistic strictures, 
 the miserable vanity and carking vexation of the 
 hollow system. He sewed two buttons upon his 
 shirt before he could put it on, and when he 
 pushed the needle through a hole and the linen 
 beneath into the ball of his thumb, he began to 
 whistle " Annie Laurie." 
 
 Susie had practiced " Annie Laurie " for an 
 hour before dinner yesterday. He wondered if 
 she had sung it last night at the Hitts'. She had
 
 24 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 been overrun with business of late, getting ready 
 for the chamber concert and private theatricals, 
 and mercy knew what else of frolic and folly 
 gotten up by Mrs. Hitt for the benefit of the 
 " Industrial Home " which was the latest charit- 
 able fad in her set. He had paid .ten dollars fora 
 reserved seat last week at the behest of the vola- 
 tile Lady Patroness. She had let him have it "at 
 a bargain because he had the good luck to be 
 Susie's husband." 
 
 " Mr. Vansittart and Mr. Peltry paid fifty apiece 
 for theirs, and I made Jack give me thirty for his. 
 My rooms will seat comfortably just one hundred 
 and fifty people, and I won't sell a ticket over 
 that number at any price. None will be for sale 
 at the door, and none are transferable. Of course, 
 the rush for them is fearful ! " 
 
 Before going Arthur peeped into the nursery, 
 dropping the most cautious of kisses upon the 
 cheek and forehead of each sleeper. Three-year 
 old Sue made up her lips into a tempting knot as 
 he touched her velvety face. 
 
 " Dee' mamma ! " she murmured in her sleep. 
 
 He kissed her again for that, the "catch in his 
 throat " in full possession. 
 
 " I don't wonder they love her ! " he said brok- 
 enly. " Who could help it? " 
 
 The block on which the Hitt mansion stood was 
 lined with waiting carriages, and Mr. Cornell sup- 
 posed that the entertainment, which he called to
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 241 
 
 himself "a show," must be nearly over. For an 
 instant, he meditated waiting without until the 
 crowd began to pour out, then, making his way 
 into the hall, to send word to his wife that he 
 awaited her pleasure. Something in the immo- 
 bility of the doors changed his plan. He did not 
 care to lurk for an hour or more among the coach- 
 men who stamped and swore upon the pavement, 
 reminding him of some verses Susie had read to 
 him in other days when she had time for books 
 and the talk over them after they were read. He 
 recalled the first and last verses, and smiled in 
 going through the discontented ranks and up the 
 flight of stone steps : 
 
 " My coachman in the moonlight there 
 
 Looks through the side light of the door; 
 I hear him with his brethren swear, 
 As I could do but only more. 
 
 Oh, could he have my share of din. 
 
 And I his quiet ! past a doubt, 
 'Twould still be one man bored within, 
 
 And just another bored without." 
 
 A surge of hot and scented air enveloped him 
 with the opening of the door. The crowd in the 
 hall contradicted the hostess' declaration that no 
 more people would be admitted than could be 
 comfortably accommodated. Struggling up to 
 the dressing room he got rid of hat and overcoat, 
 and struggled down again and to the door of the
 
 242 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 rear drawing room. A curtain was rung up from 
 a stage at the end of the apartment as he gained a 
 view of it. 
 
 The scene was the interior of an old-fashioned 
 barn. Wreaths of evergreen hung against the 
 walls and depended from the rafters, and the floor 
 was cleared for dancing. From a door at the side 
 a figure tripped into the middle of the stage. 
 Arthur looked twice before he recognized the 
 wearer of the colonial gown of old-gold brocade, 
 brief of waist, and allowing beneath the skirt 
 glimpses of trim ankles in clocked stockings. Her 
 hair was piled over a cushion and powdered ; 
 eyebrows and lashes were deftly darkened, and 
 the carmine of cheek and mouth owed brilliancy 
 to rouge-pot and hare's foot. She was the belle 
 of the ball to be held in the barn, and while wait- 
 ing for the rest of the revelers, she began to re- 
 cite, in soliloquy, the old rhymes of Money Musk. 
 
 At the second line, from an unseen orchestra, 
 issued low and faint, like the echo of a spent 
 strain, the popular dance tune. It stole so in- 
 sidiously upon the air as to suggest the musical 
 thought of the soliloquist, and was rather a back- 
 ground than an accompaniment to the recitative. 
 Gradually, as the story went on, the lithe figure 
 began to sway in perfect time to the phantom 
 music ; the eyes, smilingly eager, seemed to look 
 upon what the lips described ; the feet stirred 
 and twinkled rhythmically ; form and face were
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 243 
 
 embodied melody. Vivified by reverie, expectant 
 and reminiscent, the radiant impersonation of the 
 poet's picture floated airily through the enchant- 
 ing measures. As a morning paper put it, " she 
 seemed to respire the music to which she swayed 
 and chanted." 
 
 The audience, " though blast with much merry- 
 making and sight-seeing, hung entranced upon 
 every motion, until, wafted by gentle degrees 
 toward the side-scene opposite to that by which 
 she had entered, she vanished on the last word of 
 the poem." 
 
 Recalled by a tumult of applause, she courtesied 
 in colonial fashion, and kissed her hand brightly 
 to her admirers, but instead of vouchsafing a repe- 
 tition of what had stirred the spectators out of 
 their nil admirari mood, beckoned archly to the 
 left and right. A troop of young men and girls 
 obeyed the summons and fell into place in the 
 country dance that went forward to the now ring- 
 ing measures of Money Musk. 
 
 The comedietta to which this was the prelude 
 had been composed by a well-known author, who 
 was called out at the close of the second act, and 
 led forward the prima donna of the clever 
 piece. 
 
 The interlude showed a moonlighted dell. On 
 the distant hilltop was the gleam of white tents ; 
 in the foreground stood a woman as colorless in 
 robe and visage as the moonbeams. Her voice,
 
 344 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 silvery and plaintive, thrilled through the crowded 
 rooms : 
 
 " Give us a song ! " the soldiers cried, 
 
 The outer trenches guarding, 
 When the heated'guns of the camps allied 
 
 Grew weary of bombarding. 
 
 And so, in distinct, unimpassioned narrative up 
 to 
 
 They sang of love and not of fame, 
 
 Forgot was Britain's glory ; 
 Each heart recalled a different name. 
 But all sang " Annie Laurie." 
 
 Again the invisible orchestra bore up the uttered 
 words ; at first a single cornet bringing down the 
 air from the tented hilltop ; then deeper notes 
 joining it, like men's voices of varying tone and 
 strength, but all singing "Annie Laurie." 
 
 " Something upon the women's cheeks 
 Washed off the stains of powder." 
 
 said dissonant, derisive tones at Arthur Cornell's 
 back, as the curtain fell. " Battered veterans of 
 a dozen seasons are snivelling like ingenues of no 
 season at all. What fools New Yorkers are to be 
 humbugged with their eyes open ! " 
 
 " The fair manager hath a way of whistling the 
 tin out of our pockets," replied a thin falsetto. 
 "A wonderful creature, that same manager."
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 245 
 
 A disagreeable, wheezing laugh finished the 
 speech. 
 
 Arthur made an ineffectual effort to extricate 
 himself from the packing crowd, a movement un- 
 noticed or uncared-for by the speakers. 
 
 " I admire and despise that woman ! " con- 
 tinued the harsh voice. "As an exhibition of 
 colossal cheek she is unrivaled. For four years 
 she has preyed upon the majority that is up to 
 her little 'dodge,' and the minority that is not, 
 pocketing her half of the profits of every ' char- 
 itable ' show ; borrowing from innocents that don't 
 know that she pays not again, and actually so I 
 am told receiving a commission for introducing 
 wild Westerners and provincial Easterners into 
 what she calls ' our best circles.' And we go on 
 buying her tickets and accepting her specimens, 
 like the arrant asses we are." 
 
 " Madame du Bois, upon a limited scale." 
 
 " Exactly ! Madame is her model. Her apeing 
 is more like monkeying, but the resemblance is 
 not lost. New Yorkers rather enjoy the sublime 
 audacity of Madame's fleecing, and she does have 
 the entrcd of uppertendom, sham though she is, 
 with her drawing-room readings, where geniuses 
 are trotted out at big prices to ticket buyers, and 
 no price at all to Madame, and ranchmen's daugh- 
 ters are provided with blue-blooded Knickerbocker 
 husbands. Her schemes are on a large scale. 
 She engineers benevolent pow-wows, clears her
 
 246 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 one thousand dollars a night, and nobody dare 
 charge her with pocketing a penny. You can see 
 where Kit learned her trade. To my certain 
 knowledge she dresses herself and pays for 
 all her hospitable entertainments by these 
 tricks." 
 
 " Her latest investment isn't a bad notion, but 
 Kit is working the scheme for all it's worth. 
 Anybody but the newest of the new would see 
 through the game." 
 
 The other laughed gratingly. 
 
 " New " is a mild way of putting it. We call 
 her ' Kit's windfall ' at our Club. Madame's 
 disciple had, as she fondly imagined, netted a 
 couple of veritable musical lions, and ten people 
 were invited to hear their after-dinner roar. 
 The very day before the feast the male lion fell 
 sick, and the lioness wouldn't or couldn't leave 
 her mate. Kitty was tearing her false bang over 
 the note apprising her of the disaster when a 
 card was brought in, telling her that an old school- 
 mate who had been educated as a music-teacher, 
 and had a niceish talent for recitation, had 
 removed to the city. Kit caught at the straw ; 
 raced around to inspect her, judged her to be 
 more than eligible, and roped her in. Delorme 
 was at the dinner and told me the story, which 
 his wife had from Kit's own lips. The new 
 ' find ' had beauty as well as a voice and a taste 
 for theatricals, and a neat income, so Kit says
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 247 
 
 some thirty thousand a year. Moreover, she is 
 tremendously grateful for the lift in the world, 
 and so daft with enjoyment of her first glimpse 
 of le bon ton that she would send Kit ten out of 
 the thirty thousand sooner than lose her social 
 standing. She doesn't guess that she will be 
 tossed aside like a squeezed orange next year, 
 poor thing ! " 
 
 Arthur leaned against the door-frame, too 
 giddy and sick to move, had action been practic- 
 able in such a press. One of the tedious "waits" 
 inseparable from amateur performances gave 
 every woman there a chance to outscream her 
 neighbor. It might be dishonorable not to make 
 himself known to the gossips who considered 
 themselves absolved by the payment of an 
 entrance fee from the obligation to speak well, or 
 not at all, of their hosts. He did not put the 
 question to himself whether or not he should con- 
 tinue to listen. In a judicial mood he would 
 have weighed the pros and cons of fact or fiction 
 in the tale he had heard. Every word had, to his 
 consciousness, the stamp of authenticity. In the 
 shock of the confirmation of his worst misgivings 
 with regard to his wife's chosen intimate, his rul- 
 ing thought was of the anguish the truth would 
 cause her. How best to lessen the shock to her 
 tender, loving heart, how to mitigate her morti- 
 fication, began already to put his deliberate facul- 
 ties upon the strain.
 
 248 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 The wiry falsetto and wheezy laugh struck in 
 from his very elbow. 
 
 " Kit's exemplary spouse may not share her 
 pecuniary profits, but he has an eye to innings of 
 another sort. I met him at the Club last night, 
 and saw that he had about six champagnes and 
 four cocktails more than his brain could balance. 
 An hour later, I was passing the house of our 
 pretty prima donna when a carriage drew up and 
 out stepped Jack and turned to help out his wife's 
 favorite. And, by Jove ! the way he did it was 
 to put his arm about her waist, swing her to the 
 side-walk and try to kiss her! She espied me, I 
 suppose, for she broke away from him with a little 
 screech, and flew up her steps like a lapwing. 
 She must have had her latchkey all ready, for she 
 got the door open in a twinkling, and slammed it. 
 I guffawed outright, and didn't Jack swear ! " 
 
 "What a beastly cad he is!" said the deep 
 voice disgustfully. 
 
 Few men in the circumstances would have kept 
 so forcibly in mind the shame to wife and chil- 
 dren that would follow a blow and quarrel then 
 and there, as the commonplace husband upon 
 whose ear and heart every vile word had fallen 
 like liquid fire. He rent a path through the 
 throng, got his hat and coat and went out of the 
 abhorrent place. He had seen to it that Susie's 
 hired carriage was always driven by the same 
 man a steady, middle-aged American and re-
 
 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 249 
 
 cognizing him upon the box, signaled him to 
 draw up to the sidewalk, stepped into the vehicle, 
 and prepared to wait as patiently as might be 
 until the man's number should be called by the 
 attendant policeman. 
 
 The " show " was not over for an hour longer, 
 and his carriage was the last called. The fair 
 manager had detained her lieutenant to exchange 
 felicitations over the triumph of the evening. 
 Susie appeared, finally, running down the steps so 
 fast that her attendant only overtook her at the 
 curbstone. He had come out bareheaded, and 
 without other protection against the bitter March 
 wind than his evening dress and thin shoes. Mrs. 
 Cornell's hand was on the handle of the carriage 
 door, and he covered it with his own. 
 
 " Are you cruel or coquettish, sweet Annie 
 Laurie? " he asked in accents thickened by liquor 
 and laughter. 
 
 By the electric light Arthur saw the pale terror 
 of her face, as she tried to wrest he,r fingers from 
 the ruffianly grasp. Without a second's hesita- 
 tion the husband leaped out through the other 
 door, passed behind the carriage, lifted the man, 
 taller and heavier than himself, by the nape of the 
 neck, and laid him in the gutter. 
 
 " The fellow is drunk ! " he remarked con- 
 temptuously to the policeman who hastened up, 
 imagining that the gentleman had tripped and 
 fallen. " It is lucky you are here to look after him."
 
 250 A SOCIAL SUCCESS. 
 
 He handed his trembling wife into the carriage, 
 swung himself in after her, and bade the coachman 
 drive home. 
 
 Then for as I have expressly affirmed, this 
 man was heroic in naught save his love for wife 
 and children he put strong tender arms about 
 the sinking woman, who clung to his neck, con- 
 vulsed by sobs, as one snatched from destruction 
 might hang upon the saving hand. 
 
 " There, my darling ! It is all over ! I ought 
 to have taken better care of you. The old account 
 is closed. We'll begin another upon a clean 
 page." 
 
 He was only a bank cashier, you see, and famil- 
 iar with no figures except such as he used every 
 day.
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPA- 
 RATION. 
 
 BEFORE and since the day when a certain man 
 idling while Israel and Syria warred drew a 
 bow at a venture (the margin has it, " in his sim- 
 plicity,") that let a king's life out, the air has 
 vibrated to the twang of other bowstrings, and 
 millions of barbs, as idly sent, have been dyed 
 with life-blood. 
 
 In every 50,000 cases of this sort of man- 
 slaughter, 49,999 fall by the tongue. 
 
 The Hon. Simeon Barton, radiating pros- 
 perity from every pore of his snug person, and 
 clothed with complacency as with a garment, 
 rolled about the soon-to-be-vacated bachelor quar- 
 ters of his nephew-namesake, thumbs in armholes, 
 and chin in air, while he discoursed : 
 
 " You're a pluckier fellow than your uncle, me 
 boy ! Of course, it is on the cards that your head 
 may be level. There are literary women and 
 literary women, no doubt, and this must be a 
 favorable specimen of the tribe, or you wouldn't 
 have been in your present fix, but none of the
 
 252 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 lot in mine, if you pleasai When my turn comes 
 and I aint sure that I shan't look out for a 
 match some day, when I am too stiff to trot well 
 in single harness, I shall hold the reins. No inside 
 seat for me." 
 
 The nephew laughed in a hearty, whole-souled 
 way. He was not touched yet. 
 
 " You mix your figures as you do your cob- 
 blers after you get hold of the sherry bottle 
 with a swing. Wait until you see my ' match.' 
 She is a glorious woman, Uncle Sim. The wonder 
 is that she ever got her eyes down to my level." 
 
 The forty-year-old celibate continued to roll and 
 harangue. His dress coat was new and a close fit 
 to his rotund dapperness; with one lavender 
 glove he smote the palm of his gloved left hand ; 
 the rose in his buttonhole was paler than the 
 hard red spots on cheeks like underglazed pottery 
 for smoothness and polish, his mustache curled 
 upward and wriggled at animated periods. 
 
 " Quite the thing, me dear boy, altogether 
 proper. For me part, I wouldn't* care to be under 
 obligations to a woman when she had worked 
 down to my level, but tastes differ, and a man of 
 twenty-six who has a living to make ought to cast 
 an anchor to windward, in case of squalls. A 
 woman who can chop a stick, at a pinch, to set 
 the pot to boiling is a convenience. Literature's 
 a better trade now than it used to be, I suppose. 
 Jones of Illinois was telling me last night of the
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 253 
 
 prices paid to good Selling authors, and by 
 George ! I was surprised. All the same, I'd fight 
 shy of the Guild if I were contemplating matri- 
 mony. If you could see some of the many 
 objects that hang about the Capitol in wait for 
 Tom, Dick, or Harry to pick up a ' personal/ or 
 lobby a bill, or get subscriptions to a book or 
 magazine, you wouldn't wonder at my ' prejudice,' 
 as you are pleased to style it. Pah ! " 
 
 To rid his mouth of the taste he caught up a 
 tumbler of sherry cobbler, filmy without and icy 
 amber within, and drained it. 
 
 The expectant bridegroom glanced at the 
 clock. His best man was to call for him at a 
 quarter-past seven. It was exactly seven now, 
 and the minutes drove heavily. 
 
 " But Uncle Sim, still good-humoredly, 
 " Miss Welles is not a newspaper reporter, nor a 
 lobbyist, nor yet a penny-a-liner. She wrote to 
 please herself and her friends until her father's 
 death, six years ago. He was considered fairly 
 wealthy, but something went wrong somewhere, 
 and his widow would have suffered for the want 
 of much to which she had been accustomed but 
 for the talents and courage of her young daugh- 
 ter. I am afraid the poor girl worked harder than 
 her mother suspected for a while, although the 
 public received her favorably from the outset. 
 Mrs. Welles survived her husband three years. 
 Agnes then went to live with her only sister, Mrs.
 
 254 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 Ryder, the wife of my partner. I first met her at 
 his house. She has continued to write and has 
 supported herself handsomely in this way. She 
 is as heroic as she is sweet a thorough woman." 
 " With a masculine intellect ! I comprehend, 
 me boy. Don't multiply epithets on my account. 
 As I've said, I don't presume to question the 
 wisdom of your choice in this particular case, and 
 that your inamorata is the best of her kind, but 
 personally, I don't take to the kind. By Jupiter! 
 I was telling Jones of Illinois, last night, of an 
 incident that gave me a ' scunner ' against woman 
 authors, twenty years ago. Mrs. Shenstone of 
 New York was a literary light in her day. There's 
 a fashion in writers, as in everything else, and she 
 went out with balloon skirts and chig-nongs. 
 But she was a star of the first magnitude in her 
 own opinion, and, at any rate, something in the 
 stellar line in others' eyes. Her husband had 
 money and she was a poor girl when she married 
 him. They say he made a show of holding his 
 own while the shekels lasted. A more meek- 
 spirited atomy I never beheld than when they 
 called upon my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Lamar 
 from Charleston, then staying at the Fifth Avenue 
 Hotel, one evening, when I chanced to be sitting 
 with the Lamars in their private parlor. And as 
 sure as I am a sinner and you're another, the card 
 brought in to Mrs. Lamar was * Mrs. Cordelia 
 Shenstone nud husband? The last two words
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 255 
 
 were added in pencil. Fact, 'pon honor! Mrs. 
 Larqar carried the card home and had it framed 
 as a domestic and literary curiosity." 
 
 "You cite an extreme case" another glance 
 at the slow clock. " If that woman had been a 
 shopkeeper, or a dressmaker, with the same arbi- 
 trary, selfish spirit, she would have been guilty of 
 the same gross violation of taste and feeling." 
 
 " Maybe so ! maybe so ! But the writing 
 woman is a prickly problem in modern society. 
 She is leading the van in all revolutionary rot 
 about women's wrongs and women's rights. The 
 party can't do without her, for the rank and file 
 couldn't draft a resolution or write a report to 
 save their lives, and they've flattered up our blue- 
 stocking until she steps out of all bounds. It 
 makes a conservative patriot's blood run cold to 
 think what the upshot of it all is to be. And I 
 confess I don't like to anticipate seeing your cards 
 engraved ' Mrs. Clytemnestra Ashe and hus- 
 band."' 
 
 A dark red torrent poured over the listener's 
 face. Physically and morally, he was thin- 
 skinned. 
 
 " There is nothing of the Clytemnestra in her 
 make-up, sir. No woman ever made could rule 
 me, were she my wife. Agnes is too gentle and 
 too sensible to attempt it. As to the cards!" 
 He went to a drawer and took out a bit of paste- 
 board which he tossed to his kinsman, with a
 
 256 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION: 
 
 derisive laugh. " That is all settled, you see. 
 Come in ! " to a knock at the door. 
 
 When the tardy best man appeared, the Hon. 
 Simeon Barton, his head on one shoulder, and 
 eyes half shut, after the manner of an impudent 
 cock-sparrow, was scanning the engraved inscrip- 
 tion, 
 
 MR. AND MRS. BARTON ASHE, 
 
 170 West St. 
 
 " Leave the ' Simeon ' out, do you ? Clytem 
 Agnes doesn't like it, maybe ? " And without 
 waiting for a reply " Good-evening, Mr. White. 
 I'm just advising Bart here to use up this batch 
 of cards plaguey quick, to make room for ' Mrs. 
 Ashe and husband' " 
 
 Mr. White laughed a little and politely. The 
 jest was in miserable taste, but much was pardon- 
 able in rich uncles who were self-made men, when 
 they showed a disposition to help make their 
 nephews. A glimmer of like reasoning may have 
 entered Barton's mind, for he turned an unshad- 
 owed brow to the eccentric millionaire. 
 
 " When that time comes I shall employ you 
 to draw up the articles of separation. White, 
 here, is witness to the agreement."
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 257 
 
 An hour later, he would not have believed the 
 words had passed his lips. Jest upon such a 
 horror would have seemed profanation to the 
 newly .made husband. As the woman who would 
 never again answer to the name of Agnes Welles 
 stood beside him, his were not the only eyes that 
 paid silent homage to her strange beauty strange, 
 because to the guests, and to the assembled rela- 
 tives, this phase of one whom most people had 
 hitherto thought only " interesting " and " pleas- 
 ing," was new and unexpected. She was but a 
 few inches shorter than her manly partner, and 
 slender to fragility. Straight and supple as a 
 willow-wand, she was ethereal in grace when clad 
 in the misty robes and veil which were the wed- 
 ding gift of her godmother. Her dark eyes were 
 full of living light, illumining the colorless face 
 into weird loveliness, that belonged neither to 
 feature nor complexion. The short, tense bow of 
 the upper lip, the fine spirited line of the nostrils, 
 the perfect oval of cheek and chin, were always 
 high-bred some said, haughty. To-night they 
 were chastened into lofty sweetness that was pure 
 womanly. 
 
 "She might pass for twenty-two" said an auda- 
 ciously young debutante to a crony just behind 
 Mr. Barton. 
 
 And " By George ! " thought that astute indi- 
 vidual " the young dog never hinted that his 
 divinity was six years his senior. I should have
 
 258 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 been surer than ever of receiving that card. 
 Pity ! pity ! pity ! That's a fault that won't mend 
 with time." 
 
 Agnes knew better than he could have told her 
 what risks the woman takes who consents to marry 
 her junior in years. Early in their acquaintance- 
 ship she had contrived to apprise Barton of this 
 disparity. When he declared his love she set 
 it boldly in the foreground of hesitation and 
 demur. 
 
 " When you are thirty-five, in man's proudest 
 prime and yet far from the comb of the hill, I 
 shall have begun to go down the other side," she 
 urged. "You might be able to contemplate the 
 contrast boldly, but could I forgive myself ? 
 There may be a suspicion of poetry pathetic but 
 real in the idea of an old man's darling, but an 
 old woman's pet ! that is a theme no painter or 
 poet has dared to handle. The suggestion of 
 grotesqueness is inevitable. Both are to be pitied, 
 but I think the wife needs compassion even more 
 than the man she has made ridiculous." 
 
 The rising young lawyer was a clever advocate, 
 and he had never striven longer and harder to 
 win a cause. When his triumph was secured 
 Agnes could not quite dismiss the subject. It 
 haunted her like a wan ghost, with threatening 
 beck and ominous eye. Once, but a month before 
 their wedding day, they were speaking of George 
 Eliot's singular marriage with a man young
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 259 
 
 enough to be her son, and an abrupt change fell 
 upon Agnes' visage a shade of painful doubt 
 and misgiving. 
 
 " Dinah Maria Mulock, too ! " she exclaimed. 
 " And Mme. de Stael ! Elizabeth Browning's 
 husband was some months younger than she. 
 
 Then, there are Mrs. and Mrs. " naming 
 
 two prominent living American authors. " How 
 very singular ! There must be some occult reason 
 for what we cannot set down as coincidences. It 
 looks like fatality or " hesitatingly " infatua- 
 tion." 
 
 " Rather," said Barton in gentle seriousness, for 
 her perturbation was too real for playful rallying 
 " attribute such cases to the truth of the eternal 
 youthfulness of genius. These men see in the 
 faces and forms of the women they woo, the 
 beautiful minds that will never know age or 
 change. Time salutes, instead of challenging 
 those high in favor with the king." 
 
 " Do you know," Agnes said, her slim white 
 hand threading the brown curls of the head she 
 thought more beautiful than that of Antinous 
 " that you will never say a more graceful thing 
 than that? You are more truly a poet than I. 
 Don't disclaim, for I am not a bard at all. When 
 I drop into poetry^ la Wegg, it is not ' in the light 
 of a friend.' When I am in the dark or at best 
 in a half-light, sorry or weary, or lonely of heart, 
 my thoughts take rhythmic shape. They are only
 
 260 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 homely little crickets, creeping out in the twilight 
 to sing by the fire that is beginning to gather 
 ashes. I am a born story-teller, but I deserve no 
 credit for that. Something within me that is not 
 myself tells the stories so fast that I can hardly 
 write them down as they are made. I am no 
 genius, dear. Don't marry me with that impres- 
 sion. I wish for your sake that I were. How 
 gloriously proud you would be of me ! " 
 
 " I am ' gloriously proud ' of you now ! " He 
 said it in fervent sincerity. " If you have genius, 
 don't develop it. I can hardly keep you in sight 
 as it is." 
 
 Dimly and queerly, the feeling that prompted 
 the half-laughing protest returned upon him to- 
 night. The solemn radiance overflooding her 
 eyes and clearing into exalted beauty lineaments 
 critics pronounced irregular, positively awed him 
 an uncommon and not altogether agreeable sen- 
 sation for a bridegroom, especially one of his 
 practical and somewhat dogmatic cast of mind. 
 Rebel though romantic lovers may at what they 
 consider derogatory to the constancy and depth 
 of wedded affection, it is not to be denied that 
 the turn of the bridal pair from the altar symbol- 
 izes a reversal in their mutual relation. The 
 bonds that have held the lover in vassalage very 
 sweet bondage, perhaps, but still not liberty are 
 with the utterance of the nuptial benediction 
 transferred to the woman he holds by the hand.
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION 261 
 
 Barton Ashe was very much in love, but he was 
 a very man. His wife was now his property. 
 
 " I feel a wild desire to put my arms around 
 you to keep your wings from unfurling," he found 
 occasion to whisper presently. " I suppose these 
 people would think me insane if I were to yield 
 to the impulse and tell them why I did it." 
 
 The luminous eyes laughed joyously into his. 
 With all her intellect and passionate depth of 
 feeling, she had seasons of childlike glee that 
 became her rarely. 
 
 " As you would be. I was never farther from 
 * wanting to be an angel ' than at this instant. 
 The life that now is appears to me eminently 
 satisfactory." 
 
 A fresh bevy of congratulatory guests inter- 
 rupted the hasty " aside." 
 
 " We find it hard to forgive you, Mr. Ashe," 
 twittered an overdressed, overcolored, and over- 
 mannered spinster. " How can you reconcile it 
 to your conscience to change a broad, beneficent 
 river into a canal to serve your own particular 
 mill ? I shall not congratulate you upon a private 
 good which is a public disaster." 
 
 " Many others are thinking the same thing, but 
 they cannot express it so beautifully," said a 
 plaintive matron, one of the many whose perfunc- 
 tory sighs at weddings are the reverse of com- 
 plimentary to their bonded partners. " But we 
 must be thankful you have been spared so long
 
 262 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 to make us happy and do so much good in the 
 world." 
 
 " I am puzzled," Barton observed, looking from 
 one to the other. " If I were taking her out of 
 town, to Coromandel, we will say, or even to 
 New Jersey, there might be occasion for outcry." 
 
 " You are robbing us of the better part of this 
 woman," interrupted the hortatory spinster in 
 a dramatic contralto. " My protest is in the 
 name of those to whom she belonged by the 
 right the benefited have to the benefactor, before 
 you crossed her path, in an evil hour for the 
 world. It passes my comprehension, and I know 
 much of the arrogant vanity of your sex, how any 
 one man can hope to make up to his author wife 
 for the audience she resigns when she sits down to 
 pour out his coffee and darn his socks for the rest 
 of her mortal existence. It is breaking stones 
 with a gold mallet to make a mere housekeeper 
 out of such material as this," lightly touching the 
 head crowned by the bridal veil. " But my imag- 
 ination is not of the masculine gender." 
 
 " Don't strain it needlessly," smiled Agnes, 
 before the attacked person summoned wit for 
 a retort. " Soup-making is a finer art than writ- 
 ing essays, to my comprehension, yet I hope to 
 learn it." 
 
 The matron put in her sentence, sandwiched 
 between sighs. 
 
 " You will find the two incompatible. Once
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 263 
 
 married, a woman's life is merged in that of an- 
 other. She has no volition, no thought, no name 
 of her own." 
 
 " The married woman does not possess her- 
 self ! " cried the spinster in shrill volubility. 
 " She effaces her individuality in uttering the 
 promise to ' serve and obey ' vile words that 
 belong rather to the harem of the sixteenth cen- 
 tury than to the home of the nineteenth. Some- 
 body else has reported me in yesterday's World 
 and Herald, so I may as well tell you that I 
 brought forward a motion in Sorosis last Mon- 
 day, that the club should wear crape upon the left 
 arm for thirty days, dating from this evening, in 
 affectionate memory of one of our youngest and 
 most brilliant members. Talk of the self-immola- 
 tion of the Jesuit who changes the name his 
 mother gave him and resigns the right of private 
 judgment and personal desire in joining the 
 Order ! He is riotously free by comparison with 
 the model wife. Her assumption of the con- 
 ventual veil is mournfully symbolical." 
 
 Another wave of newcomers swept her onward, 
 still hortatory and gesticulatory. 
 
 She was never spoken of again by the bridal 
 pair until the marriage day was a fortnight old. 
 
 They were pacing the wooden esplanade in 
 front of the Hygeia Hotel at Old Point Comfort, 
 basking in the December sunshine. The sea air 
 had set roses in Agnes' cheeks ; her lips were full
 
 264 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 and red, her eye sparkled with soft content, and 
 her step was elastic. Barton, surveying these 
 changes with the undisguised satisfaction of a 
 man who has secured legally the right to exhibit 
 his prize, took his cigar from his mouth to say 
 carelessly : 
 
 " By the way, I have never asked the name of 
 the painted-and-powdered party who gave a parlor 
 lecture upon Jesuits and harems the night we 
 were married." 
 
 " It was Miss Marvel," said Agnes, laughing. 
 " She is an eccentric woman, and as I need not 
 tell you, indiscreet and flippant in talk, letting her 
 theories and spirits run away with her judgment. 
 But she accomplishes a great deal of good in 
 her way and has many fine traits of character. It 
 is a pity she does herself such injustice." 
 
 " Humph ! Does she belong to the sisterhood 
 of letters ? " 
 
 " In a way yes. Her articles upon the Work- 
 ing Girls of New York, written for newspaper 
 publication two years ago, attracted so much atten- 
 tion that they were collected into a volume last 
 summer." 
 
 " She is a member of Sorosis I gather from 
 her tirade?" 
 
 " Oh, yes. One of the oldest members." 
 
 " What a hotch-potch that society or club or 
 whatever you may choose to call it must be ! 
 Do you know, darling, I never associate you or
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 265 
 
 any other true, refined woman with the crew to 
 which you nominally belong? You are a lily 
 among thorns in such a connection. I should 
 rather say among thistles and burdocks and 
 stramonium and the like rank, vile-smelling 
 weeds." 
 
 " I thank you for the pretty praise of myself," 
 smiling sweetly and fondly at him. " But I can- 
 not accept it at the expense of fairer flowers than 
 I can ever hope to be, true, strong women who 
 are trying to help their sex to a higher plane and 
 prepare them for better work than they have 
 yet accomplished, in spite of the limitations of 
 sex " 
 
 He caught her up on the word. 
 
 " Don't fall into their cant, for Heaven's sake ! 
 The 'limitations of sex' are woman's crown of 
 glory. I have done some sober thinking lately 
 especially since the drubbing received from your 
 Miss Marvel with regard to the mooted subject 
 of the emancipation of women, falsely so called. 
 My conclusions may not coincide with your views 
 upon the subject. But, perhaps you do not care 
 to discuss it? " 
 
 Her face was sunny ; her look at once fearless 
 and confiding. 
 
 " We are both reasonable people, I hope. If 
 we are not, we love each other too well not to 
 agree amicably upon unavoidable disagreements." 
 
 Barton tossed his cigar stump into the foam of
 
 266 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 the nearest wave ; a touch of impatience went 
 with fling and laugh. 
 
 ''Isn't that like a woman? She presupposes 
 disagreement and forestalls argument by pledging 
 herself to forgive for love's sake whatever she 
 will not admit. The wisest and best of the sex 
 and you are both of these will press feeling into 
 what should be impersonal debate. Perhaps it is 
 safer to talk of other things. See that gull swoop 
 down and come up empty-clawed. That is his 
 fourth unsuccessful trip to market within thirty 
 minutes. The passe'e belle upon the pavilion over 
 there has had that rich youngling in tow twice as 
 long. I will wager a pair of gloves against a 
 buttonhole bouquet with you that she doesn't 
 land him." 
 
 Neither tone nor manner was pleasant. Agnes 
 laid her hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Won't you go on with what you were about 
 to say? I may not be able to argue. I think, 
 with you, that logic is not woman's forte. Per- 
 haps we may learn, with time and education, to 
 divorce thought and feeling. But I am a capital 
 listener, and a willing learner." 
 
 "You are an angel" pressing the hand to his 
 side, " and so far above Miss Marvel and her 
 compeers in intellect and breeding that I fret at 
 the alleged partnership. This talk of woman's 
 serfdom and the need of elevating her, mentally 
 and politically, is stuff from first to last. Vile and
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION, 267 
 
 pestilential stuff ! Heresy agarnst the teachings 
 of Nature and of Him who ordained that man 
 should be the superior being of the two. Those 
 who are pressing forward in what they call Reform 
 of Existing Wrongs are your worst enemies. 
 You should need no champion but your other 
 self, Man. In arraying one sex against the other, 
 you antagonize him. I see this rampant attitude 
 of woman everywhere and hourly. If a man 
 resigns his seat in a public conveyance to a 
 woman, she takes it arrogantly not gratefully. 
 She pushes him aside with sharp elbows in crowds, 
 jostles him upon gangways, presses before him 
 into doors, always with a ' good-as-you ' air 
 which exasperates the most amiable of us. Her 
 voice is heard in debating societies; she sits 
 beside man upon the rostrum; competes with 
 him in business, often successfully, because she 
 can live upon less than he. The devilish spirit 
 of revolt permeates all grades of society. The 
 home God's best gift to earth has no longer a 
 recognized governor, no judge to whom appeal is 
 final. Sisters wrangle with brothers for equal 
 educational advantages, instead of making home 
 so pleasant that boys will be content to stay 
 there. Women's Clubs, Women's Congresses, 
 Women's Protective Unions, are part and parcel 
 of the disunion policy. Instead of refining man 
 this is surely, if slowly, arousing the latent savage 
 in him. When that does spring to action, let the
 
 268 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 weaker sex beware. Outraged natural laws will 
 right themselves in the long run, but sometimes 
 at fearful cost." 
 
 Agnes was perfectly silent during this harangue, 
 ignorant as was he of his resemblance to pudgy 
 and pompous Uncle Simeon, while he beat the 
 palm of the right hand with the empty left-hand 
 glove, and rolled slightly from one leg to the 
 other in the slow promenade. The bloom grad- 
 ually receded from her cheeks, her profile was 
 still and clear as a cameo. Her eyes were directed 
 toward the gray-blues of the meeting line of wave 
 and sky. Once she glanced up to follow the gull, 
 rising from a fifth unsuccessful dip. 
 
 Presently she halted and leaned upon the para- 
 pet to watch the half-consumed cigar, swinging 
 and bumping like a truncated canoe in the foam- 
 fringes of the rising tide. Barton stopped with 
 her without staying his talk. An impulse born of 
 the innate savagery he imputed to his sex, bore 
 him on. His wife's very impassiveness irked him, 
 Silence was non-sympathetic ; white silence, like 
 hers, chilling. Irritation, engendered by piqued 
 vanity, does not withhold the home-thrust because 
 the victim is dearly beloved. 
 
 "You do not like to hear me talk in this strain," 
 he pursued. " It is only natural that a woman of 
 independent thought and action, accustomed to 
 adulation, and to whom the excitement of a public 
 hearing for whatever she has to say has become a
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 269 
 
 necessity of existence ; who has looked beyond 
 the quiet round of home interests and home 
 loves for a career ; who has fed her imagination 
 upon unreal scenes and situations should " 
 
 He could get no further. Fluent as he was in 
 speech, he had wound himself up in nominative 
 specifications, and the verb climax failed him un- 
 expectedly. 
 
 " Should what?" said Agnes, turning the set, 
 tintless visage toward him. Her eyes, blank and 
 questionless, showed how far from her thought 
 was sarcastic pleasure in his discomfiture. Barton 
 was too much incensed to reason. 
 
 " Should and does sneer at her husband's 
 serious talk upon a matter in which, as he is fast 
 discovering, his happiness is fatally involved ! " 
 
 "Fatally! O Barton!" 
 
 Independent and strong-minded she might be 
 to others, but he had hurt her terribly. The 
 stifled cry took all her strength with it. She 
 caught at the railing for support, and leaned upon 
 it, sick and trembling. 
 
 He lifted his hat in mock courtesy. 
 
 " If you will excuse me I will continue my walk 
 alone. It is useless to attempt the temperate 
 discussion of any subject when my words are 
 caught up in that tone and manner. May I take 
 you back to the hotel ?" 
 
 Agnes straightened herself up. Her color did 
 not return, but her voice was her own. It had
 
 270 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 always a peculiar and vibrant melody, and her 
 articulation was singularly distinct for an American 
 speaking her own language. 
 
 " You misunderstand me. I did not mean to 
 be abrupt, much less rude. If I seemed to be 
 either or both I ask your forgiveness. You need 
 not trouble yourself to escort me to the hotel. I 
 will sit here for a while and then go in. I hope, 
 when you think the matter over dispassionately, 
 you will see that I could not be guilty of what 
 you imply." 
 
 He strode off toward the Fort, the deep sand 
 somewhat derogatory to dignity of carriage, but 
 favoring the increase of irritability. Agnes strolled 
 slowly along the beach until she found a lonely 
 rock upon the tip of a tongue of bleached sand, 
 where she could sit and think out the bitterest 
 hour she had ever known. People, passing upon 
 pier and esplanade, saw her there all the fore- 
 noon, a slight figure whose gray gown matched 
 in color the stones among which she sat, as 
 motionless as they. The brackish tide rose slowly 
 until the spray sprinkled her feet, whispering 
 mournful things to rock and sand. She saw and 
 heard nothing, while her eyes seemed to follow 
 the stately sail and swoop of the gulls whose 
 breasts showed whitely against the blue of the 
 December sky. 
 
 Other wives than Lorraine Loree have wedded 
 men of high degree only to find that " husbands
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 271 
 
 can be cruel," and more than Lorraine or Agnes 
 dreamed of have made the discovery before the 
 wane of the honeymoon. 
 
 This bride felt bruised and beaten all over, and 
 suffered the more, not less, for her sorrowful 
 bewilderment as to the exact cause of this, the 
 first quarrel.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 SOME women and many men are compounded 
 and shaped into sentient beings without the infu- 
 sion of so much as a pennyweight of tact. 
 
 Many women and a few men combine with this 
 deficiency which is, in itself, a deformity a fatal 
 facility for saying exactly the wrong thing when 
 the wrong thing will do most harm. 
 
 Miss Marvel had taken all the honors in this 
 line which native bias and feminine fussiness could 
 win, and she wove a new spray into her laurel 
 wreath one day in the March succeeding the 
 winter in which Barton Ashe and Agnes Welles 
 were made one in law and gospel. 
 
 The morrow would be his wife's birthday, and 
 Barton had in his breast pocket a tiny box con- 
 taining a sapphire ring for her, when he arose to 
 resign his seat in the street car to the dashing 
 spinster, whom he recognized as soon as she en- 
 tered. He had never seen her since his wedding 
 eve, but she was not a woman to be forgotten or 
 overlooked. She was in great force to-day, gor- 
 geously appareled and flushed beyond high-rouge
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 273 
 
 mark by three hours at a literary breakfast, given 
 at Delmonico's to a distinguished foreigner. 
 
 " I am surcharged with electric thought," she 
 confided to Mr. Ashe when she hacrtaken the 
 vacarted place with a cavalier nod that might mean 
 " Thanks," or " That's only decent, my good 
 man." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Barton, in naive wonderment, for 
 the want of anything else to say. 
 
 " Surcharged ! bristling ! I could fancy that at 
 the approach of the negative pole I should crackle 
 and emit sparkles like a brisk battery. Such a 
 feast of intellect ! such flow of soul ! such scintil- 
 lating wit ! Three hours of such intercourse were 
 worth ten a thousand cycles of Cathay. Our 
 guest was superb ! such dignity and such gracious- 
 ness of affability as can only coexist in an Old 
 World product." 
 
 She spoke loudly, after the manner of the New 
 World product (gemis homo, feminine gender). 
 Several solid men peered at her around or over the 
 evening papers. Two giddy girls, who had taken 
 without thanks or scruples seats from weary men, 
 smiled undisguisedly. Barton, standing in the 
 aisle, holding on by the strap, his knees abraded 
 by the jet passementerie of Miss Marvel's velvet 
 skirt, could not budge an inch. He must hear 
 and, hearing, essay reply of some sort. " Ah ! " 
 albeit the safest and most commodious mono- 
 syllable in the language, cannot go on forever.
 
 274 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 " The lunch was largely attended, I suppose ? " 
 he ventured in tones studiously lowered. 
 
 " By every woman in New York who is worth 
 the notice of an intelligent being. With one dis- 
 tinguished exception. Mrs. Ashe's absence* was 
 the occasion of universal regret. As a well-wisher 
 let me warn you that you may be mobbed some 
 day for your unconscionable cruelty to the highest 
 order of created things; for imprisoning the eagle 
 and stilling the song of the lark. At least fifty 
 people asked me to-day why Agnes Welles had 
 disappeared from the literary firmament. For one 
 and all, I had one and the same reply. ' She has 
 taken the bridal veil,' I said, tears in eyes and 
 voice. * In consequence of that piece of barbarity, 
 and for no other cause, the places that once knew 
 her know her no more.' One woman I won't 
 divulge her name, lest you should hate her 
 said she " should as soon think of chaining a 
 thrush to the leg of a kitchen chair as of 
 obliging that glorious young thing to resign 
 her Heaven-appointed mission for the position 
 of caterer, housekeeper, and seamstress.' I 
 shall work that bon mot into my next literary let- 
 ter to the Boston Globe. Another delightfully 
 satirical creature advised me to take up the cause 
 of ' Great Women Married to Small Men,' in my 
 next series of papers upon ' Unconsidered Wrongs 
 of Our Sex.' You see the reputation you are 
 earning for yourself with the powers that be ! "
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 275 
 
 Barton Ashe was a sensible man, well educated 
 and well bred. Under favoring circumstances, as 
 when inspired by the society of his wife and her 
 loving appreciation, he was quick with repartee 
 and apt at fence even with a wordy woman. 
 Under the present onslaught he was furious and 
 dumb. Had a man insulted him, and less grossly, 
 he would have knocked him down or given him his 
 card and demanded a meeting elsewhere. This be- 
 rouged and bedizened old maid compromised him 
 in the eyes of solid men and giddy girls by enter- 
 ing into conversation with him at all. Each shrill 
 word was a prickle in a pore of his mental cuticle. 
 She advertised his wife as one of her kind, 
 arraigned him as despot and churl, menaced him 
 with public exposure, and posed as Agnes' 
 champion against the oppressor on whose side 
 was the power of law and tradition made him 
 ridiculous to all within the sound of her brazen 
 tongue and he was powerless. 
 
 He did the only thing possible to a man calling 
 himself a gentleman, when baited to desperation 
 in a public place by a woman who passes for a 
 lady he lifted his hat silently and pulled the 
 strap to stop the car. Other passengers than Miss 
 Marvel marked the dark face and blazing eyes, 
 and curious regards wandered back to the offender, 
 smiling to herself at this new proof of her ability 
 to, in her favorite phrase, " drive a poisoned needle 
 under a man's fifth rib."
 
 276 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 " Great Women Married To Small Men ! " 
 The most offensive count in the unanswered 
 indictment seemed to be flung after him by the 
 shrieking March wind. Until this moment of 
 intensest exasperation he had never consciously 
 compared himself mentally with his wife. That 
 spiritually she was purer and better he was ever 
 ready to admit. The gallant alacrity with which 
 men yield the palm of virtue and piety to women 
 may be due to the candor of real greatness, but a 
 keen student of human contrarieties is excusable 
 for likening it, sometimes, to the ostentatious 
 generosity of the child who surrenders to a play- 
 fellow the wholesome " cookey," while he holds 
 fast to the plum cake for his own delectation. 
 
 " Great " and " Small " were explicit terms that 
 threw our hero upon the hostile-defensive. 
 Agnes was a pearl among women, as good, true, 
 and sweet as any man need covet for a lifelong 
 companion. She kept his house well and his 
 home bright, her sympathies were ready, her 
 love was poured out upon him in unstinted meas- 
 ure, she studied his tastes, humored his few 
 foibles, in brief, filled his life, or so much of it as 
 she could reach, most satisfactorily. Her mind 
 was fairly stocked with miscellaneous information ; 
 she had remarkable facility in composition and 
 graceful fancies, and, above all, the happy knack 
 of saying, in a telling way, things people cared to 
 hear. Being in " the literary ring," she had
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 277 
 
 secured a respectable audience, and, being a tact- 
 ful woman, she had kept it. 
 
 " Great," she was not, in any sense of the word, 
 except according to the perverted standard of the 
 " Club " gang, the mutual-admiration circle, with 
 whom every poetaster was a Browning, and the 
 writer of turgid essays a Carlyle or Emerson. 
 
 He gave a scornful snort in repeating the 
 adjective. Agnes would be the first to deprecate 
 the application of it to herself. Yet if she had 
 not invited the commendation of the Prtcieuscs 
 ridicules had her name never been bandied from 
 mouth to mouth in public, the antithetical 
 " small " had never been fitted to him. Husband 
 and wife were in false positions. That was clear 
 and galling. Almost as clear, and harder to 
 endure, was his conviction that the situation could 
 not be altered for the better. 
 
 He had not made up his mind to graceful 
 acceptance of the inevitable when he fitted the 
 latchkey in the door of his own house. 
 
 The popular impression as to the housewifery 
 of pen-wrights had no confirmation within the 
 modest domicile of which Agnes Ashe was the 
 presiding genius. During her mother's pro- 
 tracted invalidism and her own betrothal she had 
 studied domestic economy, including cookery, with 
 the just regard to system and thoroughness that 
 made her successful in her other profession of 
 authorship. Her computations were correct and
 
 2 ?8 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 her methods dainty. She deserved the more 
 honor for all this because she was not naturally 
 fond of household occupations. If she reduced 
 dusting to a fine art, mixing and baking to an 
 exact science, it was conscientiously, not with 
 love for the duties themselves. 
 
 Once, when praised for excellent housekeeping 
 by a friend in her husband's hearing, her native 
 sincerity made her say : 
 
 " You are mistaken in supposing that the 
 drudgery connected with home-making is easy 
 or pleasant to me. If I did not feel it my duty to 
 go into the kitchen sometimes, and to arrange 
 rooms, I doubt if I should ever do either. Nor 
 am I fond of sewing." 
 
 " Yet your needle-work is exquisitely neat," 
 said the surprised visitor. 
 
 "Because I hold myself to the necessity of 
 doing well what I undertake. It is all business, 
 not delight." 
 
 After the visitor had gone, Barton gave a gentle 
 and needful caution. 
 
 " Don't talk in that way to acquaintances, 
 dear," he said. " I don't want people to report 
 that your tastes are unfeminine." 
 
 " Surely there are other feminine tastes besides 
 love for needle, broom, and egg-beater?" Agnes 
 protested, no less gently. " Why should every 
 woman be proficient in baking, when every man 
 is not compelled to learn book-keeping? I am
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 279 
 
 faithful in the discharge of domestic duties because 
 I love you and consider your happiness rather 
 than selfish ease. I love my home, and to enjoy 
 the effect of clean, orderly rooms and well- 
 served meals, I am willing to perform tasks for 
 which I have no real liking. The game is well 
 worth the candle a good many waxlights, in 
 fact but I question if you, for example, really 
 like to draw up conveyances and make searches." 
 
 " Illustration is not argument," said Barton 
 dryly. " You are undeniably a clever woman, my 
 love, but your reasoning would hardly convince a 
 jury. Women's efforts in that direction are what 
 we style ' special pleading.' " 
 
 This talk was held two months ago. Agnes 
 knew better, by now, than to attempt argument 
 with him, and his love grew apace because of the 
 forbearance he mistook for conviction of his 
 ability to direct thought with action. She was 
 the dearer for being dutiful. The docility with 
 which she listened to his dicta, never betraying a 
 suspicion that they were dogmas, won him to 
 forgetfulness of the circumstance that she was 
 his senior by six years and a blue-stocking. 
 
 She was in the front hall when he got home 
 to-night, receiving the adieu of a spectacled per- 
 sonage whom she introduced as " Mr. Rowland 
 of Boston." 
 
 " Charmed, I am sure," said the stranger airily. 
 " The more that I am positive of enlisting Mr.
 
 280 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 Ashe's powerful interest upon my side, and that 
 of the book-loving public. If Mrs. Ashe will par- 
 don the additional trespass upon her time, I 
 should like to explain to you, my dear sir, the 
 nature of my petition to her, and now to yourself." 
 
 They returned to the parlor, and he had his 
 say. It was succinct and comprehensive. He 
 wished to engage Mrs. Ashe to write one of a 
 projected series of popular novels. Her coad- 
 jutors would be authors of repute ; the pro- 
 gramme was attractive and must take immensely 
 with the best class of readers. His terms were 
 liberal. 
 
 In any other mood than that for which Miss 
 Marvel was chiefly responsible, even a prejudiced 
 man must have been gratified by the compliment 
 to his wife implied in the application. It acted 
 upon the chafed surface of husbandly vanity and 
 dignity like moral aqua fortis. Barton listened 
 with lowering brow and compressed lips while the 
 fashionable publisher subjoined appeal to state- 
 ment. When both were concluded the master of 
 the house waited with palpable patience, appar- 
 ently to make sure that all the pleas were in, then 
 arose with the air of the long-bored householder 
 who dismisses a book agent. 
 
 " Mrs. Ashe is so well acquainted with my views 
 upon the subject of her undertaking any literary 
 work whatsoever, that I may be allowed the 
 expression of my surprise at her reference of this
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 281 
 
 matter to me. I believe, however, that the 
 feminine litterateur considers a show of deference 
 to her husband a graceful form. Your appeal to 
 me is, you see, the idlest of courtesies. Now, as 
 I have just come home after a wearisome day of 
 business, may I ask you to excuse me from further 
 and fruitless consideration of this subject ? " 
 
 He bowed and went off to his dressing room. 
 
 The man of the world, left thus awkwardly en 
 t$te-a-tete with an insulted wife, always remem- 
 bered with grateful admiration the perfect breed- 
 ing that helped him out of the dilemma. 
 
 " Mr. Ashe is very tired and far from well," 
 Agnes remarked, eye and smile cool and unembar- 
 rassed. " As one conversant with the fatigues 
 and harassments of business life, you need no 
 apology beyond this for his seeming brusque- 
 ness. I dare say " with archness that was well 
 achieved " that Mrs. Rowland would compre- 
 hend, better than you, what serpentlike wisdom 
 we wives must exercise in broaching any subject 
 that requires thought to our hungry lords. I will 
 appeal from Philip famished to Philip full, in due 
 season, but I think you would better not depend 
 upon me. I am a very busy woman just now, 
 and shall be for some time to come." 
 
 " It would give me solid satisfaction to punch 
 that fellow's head," muttered the publisher in the 
 street. ^ He is a boor and a tyrant, and his wife 
 is an angel."
 
 282 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 He was wrong in both specifications. Barton 
 Ashe was a vain man, and his vanity was smart- 
 ing from a recent attack. His ideas of the 
 supremacy, intellectual and official, that do hedge 
 a husband were overstrained, but natural. 
 
 Agnes Ashe was a very mortal woman, walk- 
 ing up and down her pretty room after the de- 
 parture of her visitor, hands clenched until the 
 nails wounded the flesh, and cheeks so hot they 
 dried the tears before they fell. Her breath came 
 fast between the shut teeth. Women will com- 
 prehend how much easier it was to forgive her 
 husband for the slur cast upon her than for lower- 
 ing himself in the eyes of a stranger. 
 
 " I am afraid of myself ! " she whispered pant- 
 ingly. "I am afraid of myself ! Must I, then, 
 despise him utterly ? What right has he to charge 
 upon me as shame what others account as honor? 
 Can it be that he is conscious of being small and 
 fears to let me grow ? " 
 
 By different roads, the refined woman, who 
 loved her art for its own sake and reverenced it 
 for the good it might do, and the pretender, 
 tolerated by true artists out of charity, and out of 
 respect for the active benevolence that redeemed 
 her from the rank of a public nuisance had 
 arrived at a like conclusion. 
 
 Barton, after his bath and toilet, sat down to 
 dinner, and scarcely spoke until excejjent clear 
 soup and the delicious creamed lobster prepared
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 283 
 
 by Agnes' own hands, had paved the way for more 
 substantial viands. Then his righteous wrath was 
 partially cooled by perception of the truth that 
 the still, pale woman opposite meant to enter no 
 defense against the aspersions cast upon her in 
 another's hearing. Nay, more, she made no 
 attempt to cheat him into a milder mood, 
 broached no prudent topics, attempted no diver- 
 sion. Second thought found fresh fuel for dis- 
 pleasure in her reticence. The double offense of 
 Miss Marvel's tirade and the airy publisher's 
 errand were not condonable by discreet silence. 
 
 He slashed simultaneously into a roast of beef 
 and the grievance upon his mind. 
 
 " I met your particular crony, Miss Marvel, in 
 the car on my way uptown. She was, if possible, 
 more detestably impertinent than usual." 
 
 Agnes beckoned to the waitress and gave her 
 in a low tone an errand to the kitchen. Glancing 
 up at her husband, she saw that he had laid down 
 the carver and was gazing sternly at herself. 
 
 " May I, as the least important member of this 
 household, inquire why you sent that girl out of 
 the room ? I may be, as your dear friends assert, 
 a small man married to a great woman, but I am 
 credited by others with a modicum of common 
 sense and discretion. I am willing to abide by 
 the consequences of whatever I say at my own 
 table and in the presence of my servants, if I 
 have any proprietorship in either."
 
 284 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 Red heat he had never seen before in Agnes' 
 face suffused it now, her eyes dilated and 
 gleamed. 
 
 " I sent the girl from the room because she 
 was recommended to me by the matron of an 
 orphan asylum in which she was brought up. 
 Miss Marvel is a manager of the institution and 
 had the girl trained in a school for domestics. 
 Mary is much attached to her. I thought it 
 hardly safe or kind to discuss her in Mary's 
 presence." 
 
 Barton met generous heat with deadly coldness. 
 
 " When is your waitress' month up ? " 
 
 " On the fifteenth." 
 
 " This is the seventh. Pay her a week's wages 
 to-morrow and pack her off. I will have none of 
 that woman's spies in my house that is, always 
 supposing it to be mine. I understand this after- 
 noon's scene. She is kept posted as to the status 
 of domestic affairs." 
 
 " You are out of humor, Barton, or you could 
 not be so unjust to me and to a faithful servant." 
 
 Griselda would not have retorted in a hard, 
 cutting tone, but Griselda could neither read nor 
 write. Diffusion of knowledge has a tendency to 
 breed sedition among the lower orders. 
 
 Clubs for the lofty, and lager beer saloons for 
 the lowly, stand, with controversial Benedicks, for 
 the " refuges " foreign cities offer to the fugitive 
 from wheels and hoofs.
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 285 
 
 " Excuse me for leaving you to digest your 
 dinner and the memory of that last remark in 
 solitude," Barton said sardonically. " I shall 
 finish my dinner at the club." 
 
 The library was the coziest room in the house. 
 Before Mr. Rowland called, Agnes had looked 
 into it to see that the fire was bright and that Bar- 
 ton's easy-chair, newspaper, and cigar-stand were 
 in place. Upon the table was a bowl of Bon 
 Silhie roses he had ordered on his way down- 
 town that morning. She had poured out his 
 coffee and lighted his cigar here for him last 
 night. It all rushed over her with the pure de- 
 liciousness of the roses' breath, as she returned to 
 the deserted apartment after dinner. As she 
 moved, the fragrance broke into waves that over 
 whelmed her with the sweet agony of associative- 
 ness. 
 
 Sinking upon her knees before her husband's 
 chair, she laid her head within her enfolding arms 
 and remained thus until the clock struck nine. 
 Then she spoke aloud : 
 
 " What has he given me in exchange for my 
 beautiful ideal world and for my work? A 
 drugged cup, with gall and wormwood in the 
 bottom." 
 
 The slow, scornful syllables jarred the per- 
 fumed waves and echoed hollowly in the still 
 corners. 
 
 She arose, unlocked a secretary at the back of
 
 286 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 the room, and took out a worn portfolio also 
 locked. Selecting from the contents several large 
 sheets of paper, she laid them in order upon the 
 table, and drew from an inner pocket a gold pen 
 in a shabby handle. With it she had written her 
 first book. For six years she had used no other. 
 Before dipping it into the ink, she kissed it. 
 " I have come back to you ! " she said.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 WITH the first heavy snows of December a 
 little daughter was given to Agnes Ashe. 
 
 On New Year's Day her husband proposed to 
 read aloud to her a book " some of the Club fel- 
 lows were talking about last night." The pale 
 face flushed nervously when he undid the wrap- 
 ping paper. 
 
 It was one of the " happenings " we persist in 
 classing among singular coincidences, although 
 they are of daily occurrence, that he should have 
 selected that particular novel for their entertain- 
 ment on the holiday he proposed to devote 
 entirely to his convalescent wife. 
 
 " The Story of Walter King " had not been 
 sent, as one might suppose would have been 
 natural, to Mr. Rowland of Boston. 
 
 " He would guess instantly how matters are," 
 Agnes reasoned. " I am still too proud to run 
 that risk." 
 
 She took the MS. instead to a New York 
 publisher in whose discretion she could trust, told 
 him of her whim to establish a new reputation 
 which should owe nothing to past gains, and left
 
 288 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 the story with him. In a week it was accepted 
 and in the printer's hands. When Baby Agnes 
 upon whom the mother bestowed the Scotch pet- 
 name of " Nest " was born, new editions were 
 selling as fast as the press could turn them 
 out. 
 
 It was evident, said critics, that the fresh, nerv- 
 ous novel was from the hand of a young writer, 
 skilled in the use of language but unhackneyed 
 by the need of furnishing " pot-boilers." It was as 
 evident, said readers, that the unknown author 
 had fed the pen directly from his heart, and that 
 personal experience had had much to do with the 
 make-up of the " live book." 
 
 Agnes had held no communication with the 
 discreet publisher since the contract was signed. 
 She had not corrected the proof-sheets, or had an 
 advance copy of the work. There was, therefore, 
 literal truth in her reply to Barton's query 
 " Have you read it?" 
 
 " I have not even seen the book that I recollect. 
 Who is the author ? " 
 
 " John C. Hart " turning to the title page. 
 " What else has he done ? " 
 
 " The name sounds familiar. Or, perhaps it 
 may be that I am thinking of Professor John S. 
 Hart. You are very kind to think of getting a 
 new book for me ! trebly kind to offer to read it 
 to me." 
 
 " It is little enough I can do for the best wife
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 289 
 
 in Christendom ! " stooping to kiss her and then 
 Baby Nest asleep in her crib beside Agnes' re- 
 clining chair. 
 
 The languid mother, grateful for his society 
 and loverly attentions, was more like his ideal 
 wife than Agnes had been since the eve of her 
 birthday, when he had almost forgotten (through 
 her fault) that he was a gentleman. No explana- 
 tions had followed the ugly scene. They had 
 met at breakfast the next morning as if the fracas 
 had not occurred, but then and thereafter he had 
 missed something from his married life. Had he 
 tried to analyze the vague, ever present discom- 
 fort, he would have said that his wife was always on 
 guard. No surprise of abrupt or rough speech 
 betrayed her into a show of temper or wounded 
 feeling. No overflow of tenderness elicited a 
 confession of answering devotion. When ques- 
 tioned, she was frank in declaring that she loved 
 him, and sought to make him happy in his home 
 and content with her. She was never sad in his 
 sight. Domestic and society duties were cheer- 
 fully performed, she was always ready to go out 
 with him when he desired it and gave him her 
 company at home conscientiously, There was 
 the sore spot ! He could not prove that her love 
 and duty were perfunctory, but he never got 
 away from the irritating suspicion that they were. 
 Had she been miserable, pettish, or fretfully exact- 
 ing, it would have accorded better with his creed
 
 290 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 of the absolute dependence of a woman upon her 
 lord. In plain English which, however, he 
 would have been ashamed to put into words 
 in any language it irked him that his mental 
 and moral barometer could not set the weather 
 for his household. There was a something back 
 of Agnes' even temper and equable spirits he 
 could not touch and that told him she was suffi- 
 cient unto herself. Into this she seemed to retire 
 as into the cleft of a rock when the matrimonial 
 horizon threatened storm. 
 
 There was no one to tell him of mornings 
 spent in the library, or of the work done during 
 the evenings he passed at the club. He ought to 
 have been gratified at her smiling aquiescence 
 in his apologetic representation of the business 
 necessity laid upon a man to mingle socially with 
 " the fellows." Some women made it preciously 
 disagreeable for husbands who acted upon this 
 compulsion, but his wife was never lonely by day 
 or night. If he came home at eleven o'clock, 
 she was in the library, reading or knitting beside 
 a glowing fire, ready to receive him and to listen 
 with interest to club stories or incidents. If he 
 stayed out after midnight, she went to bed like a 
 sensible Christian and slept soundly. 
 
 What could be more exemplary and satisfac- 
 tory ? He had a model wife. Would sulks, 
 tears, and chidings have been more to his taste ? 
 This conclusion reached, he would berate himself
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 291 
 
 for " an unreasonable dog " and go on missing 
 something he could not define. 
 
 An odd conceit came to Agnes as the full, 
 manly voice began " The Story of Walter King " 
 a fancy that won a smile from her at first, and 
 terrified her when she could not shake it off. She 
 was the unsuspected mother of a foundling. In 
 secret and in fear, she had laid the new-born baby 
 at a stranger's door. He had cared for, fostered, 
 and clothed it, and on this New Year's Day, her 
 husband had ignorantly adopted the waif and led 
 it, a beautiful child, to her, bespeaking her admira- 
 tion for it. 
 
 For her own baby ! the thing born of her soul, 
 the express image of her thought, the bright, 
 glorious darling in whom, and with whom, and 
 by whom, she had lived all these weary, weary 
 months ! Her husband would introduce these two 
 to one another ! Was her left hand a stranger to 
 her right ? Was her heart alien to the blood leap- 
 ing from it ? 
 
 She could have laughed and cried hysterically, 
 could have snatched the book from the uncon- 
 scious reader and covered it with tears and kisses. 
 She must touch and hold it once, if but for a 
 minute, or the strained heart-strings would part. 
 
 " Can you see well ? " she interrupted the reader 
 to ask. The calm tone surprised herself and lent 
 her courage to carry out her stratagem. " Does 
 the light fall right for you ? In her anxiety to
 
 292 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 exclude draughts and the snow glare, Mrs. Ames 
 may have made it too dark for well people. Is 
 the type pretty clear ? " 
 
 She put out her hand and drew the volume from 
 his. The sight of familiar paragraphs and names 
 was as if the child had laughed, in happy recogni- 
 tion, into her eyes. She passed her ringers lov- 
 ingly over the page, stroked the binding, raised 
 the open book to her lips, and gave it back 
 reluctantly. 
 
 " The smell of newly printed pages is delicious 
 to me," she said, trying to laugh. " Sweeter than 
 new-mown hay." 
 
 " They have brought it out in good style," ob- 
 served Barton carelessly. " One gets no slipshod 
 literature from that house. Their imprint is a title 
 of intellectual nobility." 
 
 Agnes smiled brightly in assent, turned her 
 cheek to the cushioned back of her chair, and 
 closed her eyes to keep the happy tears from slip- 
 ping beneath the lids. Was the time close at 
 hand in which she could safely acknowledge her 
 offspring ? To screen the fact of her maternity 
 from possible premature discovery she had re- 
 frained from so much as looking upon or speaking 
 of the bantling for these long weeks. Providence 
 had put this opportunity of honorable recognition 
 before her. How should she seize it ? 
 
 A thought struck her like an icebolt. What 
 would Barton say, even in this auspicious hour, to
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 293 
 
 the systematic concealment practiced before and 
 since the advent of the adopted child ? Would 
 he throw it from him as he would a snake ? She 
 pictured the possibility of virtuous horror in the 
 regards turned upon her, the aversion a moral 
 man feels for a lost woman. Deception even 
 untruth might be forgiven; the deliberate dis- 
 regard of his expressed wish that his wife should 
 never again put sentiment or feeling of hers into 
 print would be construed into absolute crime. 
 He held the desire for literary renown on the part 
 of a woman to be a fault that unsexed her. In a 
 young girl the ambition might spring from the 
 unrest of an unfilled heart, mistaken, but pardon- 
 able as a blunder of ignorance. A wife's heart, 
 thoughts, and hands should be full of home and 
 home loves, or she did not deserve her high and 
 blessed estate. 
 
 She felt, now, that she could never make him 
 understand how the side of her nature which he 
 saw and knew was bettered and elevated by the 
 healthful action of its twin, to which he was a 
 stranger. She had " put herself into the book," 
 but not in the lower and vulgar sense in which the 
 reviewers had used the phrase. The aspirations 
 with which others could not intermeddle least of 
 all, the husband who so grossly misjudged her, the 
 fancies that beguiled Time of heaviness and drew 
 the soreness from her heart while she dallied with 
 them were there. Her ideals were her real
 
 294 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 companions; her dream children her only con- 
 fidants. 
 
 " The things which are seen are temporal ; the 
 things which are not seen are eternal" 
 
 The author who is not made, but born; the 
 idealist whose brain creations are to him almost 
 visible and tangible, while he communes with 
 them can, of all men, enter most joyfully into 
 the meaning of the sweet mysticism uttered by 
 the Creator of things temporal and things 
 eternal. 
 
 It was a snowy day ; transient glimmers of 
 white light, shed from thinner clouds, were the 
 precursors of thicker falls of soundless flakes. 
 There was no wind, and as Agnes watched the 
 storm between the slightly parted blinds, a cur- 
 tain of purest lace seemed unfolding and wavering 
 earthward. The hush of a great holiday en- 
 wrapped the city. Baby Nest slumbered peace- 
 fully amid billows of lawn and wool ; the strong, 
 mobile features of the husband she loved and 
 feared more than any other living mortal dark- 
 ened and lightened like the snow clouds, with the 
 progress of the story. He read well, and threw 
 unusual spirit into the present task. 
 
 Agnes hearkened, with a growing sense of un- 
 reality. The disowned child pressed nearer and 
 closer, gazed appealingly into her face, cooed 
 love words in her ear, covered with kisses the 
 hands with which the hapless mother was con-
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 295 
 
 strained to hold it aloof from the heart that 
 yearned to take it in. 
 
 Sometimes Barton's voice sounded a great way 
 off, and she confused his utterances with the 
 winged ideas she had formulated into human lan- 
 guage. Was she thinking it all out ? or was he 
 enunciating what she had thought through the 
 languorous summer days and cool autumn even- 
 ings ? She used to wonder, amusedly, what he 
 supposed she did during the many hours she 
 spent in solitude. He never asked, but if he had 
 deemed the matter worthy of speculation, he 
 might have reasoned that a woman who did not 
 make her own clothes and had no taste for fancy 
 work, whose house was well appointed and not 
 large, and whose health was good must, with two 
 servants to do housework and cooking, have much 
 time upon her hands. 
 
 " How do women occupy themselves who keep 
 plenty of servants and do not write, paint, or 
 study anything in particular?" asked the young 
 son of a woman who kept house, wrote 
 books, painted pictures, and studied with her 
 children. 
 
 " They make a profession of horacide ! " an- 
 swered the mother. 
 
 Barton lowered the book so abruptly that his 
 wife started and clasped her hands involuntarily. 
 She was very weak. 
 
 " I should like to know this man ! "
 
 296 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 " What man ? " 
 
 " The fellow who wrote this book ! He is a 
 New York lawyer that is plain. His insight of 
 legal chicanery and his apt use of technical law 
 terms show that, if his clever reasoning did not. 
 A Columbia graduate, too ! I'll go bail for that. 
 And a society man. By George ! that narrows 
 the case down pretty well. I don't know a man 
 at the city bar, though, who has sufficient literary 
 skill to turn out such a piece of work as this. 
 ' John C. Hart ' is a pseudonym, of course but 
 there may be a meaning in it." 
 
 He fell into a muse over the title page, knot- 
 ting his brows and plucking at his lower lip 
 while he scanned the name. 
 
 Agnes' breath came quick ; her head swam as 
 in seasickness. She shook herself mentally and 
 tried to speak as usual : 
 
 " It may be another case of George Eliot, 
 alias Mary Anne Evans; or Charles Egbert Crad- 
 dock, alias Miss Murfree." 
 
 " Preposterous ! There isn't a feminine touch 
 in the book. And no woman of the education 
 and refinement of this writer could know any- 
 thing of the scenes and motives he describes. 
 Men can paint women faithfully. Women who 
 try to depict men show us up as hybrids, crea- 
 tures of their own sex disguised in masculine 
 habiliments. Ready-made clothes at that, baggy 
 at the knees and short at the wrists. I should not
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 297 
 
 like, however, to know a woman who could write 
 ' The Story of Walter King.' " 
 
 " It does not impress me as coarse ! " Agnes was 
 nerved by instinctive resentment to say. 
 
 " Not a symptom of coarseness about it. But 
 it is virile and that your woman author ought 
 never to be ! Any man might be proud of having 
 written this novel. Any true, modest woman 
 would blush to be accused of it. You see the 
 difference ? " 
 
 " / see the difference between the patient I left 
 three hours ago, and the one I find here now ! " 
 interjected the nurse bluntly. 
 
 She had come in while Barton was speaking, 
 and had her hand on Mrs. Ashe's pulse. 
 
 " Tut ! tut ! tut ! " she went on in grave vexa- 
 tion. " We shall have the doctor again if this 
 sort of excitement goes on. Eyes glassy, pulse 
 up, and, I venture to say, headache back of the 
 eyes. Don't deny it, Mrs. Ashe ! I know the 
 signs. Here's your lunch after which, we must 
 have the room darkened and try to compose 
 your nerves. It won't do to have a throw-back 
 at this late day." 
 
 Barton carried off " The Story of Walter King " 
 with him to the library, a little anxious, but more 
 aggrieved. In common with the mighty majority 
 of husbands, he resented Mrs. Gamp the more 
 virulently because impotent against her tyranny. 
 
 " Thank Heaven that her time, like her infernal
 
 298 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 master's, is short ! " growled he, dropping into his 
 easy-chair and throwing his legs over the foot-rest 
 in lordly disdain of appearances. " I suppose 
 women enjoy being hectored, or the sex would 
 rise en masse against this order of haggish hum- 
 bugs. Agnes didn't dare peep a defense of her- 
 self, or of me. Great Scott ! suppose I had been 
 born a woman ! " 
 
 He lighted a cigar and reopened his book. A 
 luxurious, if lonely, lunch was served at half-past 
 one. Wine and walnuts went with him into the 
 library after the meal was eaten. The air was blue 
 with fragrant smoke for the rest of the day. He 
 did not take the nap he had promised himself as 
 the chief delight of a lazy afternoon, until the 
 last page of " The Story of Walter King " was 
 devoured. Even after he had stretched himself 
 upon the lounge and drawn .the silken and eider- 
 down slumber-robe over him, he lay looking at 
 the purring fire of sea-coal and listening to the 
 muffled tinkle of sleigh-bells along Fifth Avenue, 
 which was but a block distant and thinking of 
 the book that had enchained him so many hours. 
 It had taken a powerful grip of his imagination 
 and titillated his intellectual palate smartly. 
 There were passages in it 'that recalled pertinent 
 and pregnant sayings of his own relative to cer- 
 tain topics discussed in the fascinating pages; 
 theories he had advanced and maintained ; his 
 very turns of speech were here and there.
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 299 
 
 Again he said, " I should like to know that 
 man. He has a long head and sharp wits of his 
 own. Immense knowledge of the world and 
 human nature." Without the least intention of 
 being conceited he subjoined to the silent solilo- 
 quy: " If I had turned my attention to literature, 
 I believe I could have written that book. But 
 one man cannot be proficient in everything. The 
 suggestion of feminine authorship is ridiculous. 
 Poor Agnes is a sensible girl, but she is wide of 
 the mark there." 
 
 Here his thoughts wandered into the poppied 
 plains of sleep. 
 
 Awaking from his siesta to find himself in the 
 dark, he arose refreshed, and paid a dutiful call to 
 his wife's chamber before going out to dine at his 
 club. The nurse met him upon the threshold 
 and stepped out into the hall for a whispered col- 
 loquy. Both of her charges had been restless all 
 the afternoon. The baby was colicky, Mrs. Ashe 
 feverish and excited, although persisting that 
 nothing ailed her. 
 
 " She has an exquisitely susceptible nervous 
 organization," she continued in the parrotlike 
 lingo of the trained nurse. "We must really 
 guard her more carefully in future. She was talk- 
 ing about that novel in her sleep just now beg- 
 ging you not to take it away from her and all 
 that, in quite a wild way. There is evidently 
 cerebral excitement. Perhaps, as you are going
 
 300 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 out, it might be prudent to telephone the doctor 
 to drop in toward bedtime." 
 
 " Oh, a good sleep will set her up all right ! " 
 returned Barton slightingly. It did not suit his 
 notions of marital rights to be interviewed and 
 advised in a ghostly whisper without the precincts 
 of his own room, by this pretentious hireling. 
 " The book had nothing to do with her uncom- 
 fortable afternoon. It was probably the luncheon. 
 I thought, when you brought it up, that it was 
 more like a meal for a ditcher than for a delicate 
 invalid." 
 
 Pleased at administering this Roland for accum- 
 ulated Olivers, he ran downstairs without attend- 
 ing to her protest, and whistled softly while 
 equipping himself for the walk through the snow. 
 The night was sharply cold ; the drifts were as 
 dry as dust. He laughed like a boy in plowing 
 through them. The return to bachelor freedom 
 was not bad, for a change, and there were sure to 
 be a lot of prime fellows at the club on a stormy 
 holiday night.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 AT eleven o'clock of that New Year's night the 
 snow still fell, but the wind had increased to a 
 gale, and shook the eastward windows of Agnes 
 Ashe's bedchamber. 
 
 Nurse and baby were sound asleep in the ad- 
 joining nursery. Even in the well-built house and 
 curtained room, the night-light wavered in the 
 unquiet air, sending fitful hosts of specter shad- 
 ows scurrying over the ceiling and falling down 
 the walls. Sometimes one dropped upon the bed 
 and made mouths or crooked lean fingers at the 
 convalescent. Now and then they whispered 
 something in fleeing or skulking past. When this 
 happened they spoke of her husband and how he 
 had carried off both her babies downstairs. For 
 Baby Nest's crib was gone. She had been doubly 
 robbed. 
 
 The door of communication between the rooms 
 was ajar. Mrs. Ashe had need to move cau- 
 tiously in arising and wrapping herself in a dress- 
 ing gown. She had been three weeks upstairs. 
 Mrs. Ames had declared her too feeble to walk 
 across the room unaided, but to-night she felt 
 strong and restless. Her brain was teeming with 
 fledged thoughts, crying and fluttering to escape.
 
 302 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 If she had pen and ink she could begin another 
 book, now that the nurse was asleep and Barton 
 out. But that was not her reason for getting up 
 and slipping on the wrapper. Oh, no ! She drew 
 the door to behind her cautiously, listened with 
 held breath for sounds from the inner room, and 
 hearing nothing, smiled cunningly, crept to the 
 stair-head and down the polished steps. Their 
 chill struck through the slippers into which she 
 had thrust her stockingless feet ; she shivered in 
 the wind that drove fine snow under the front 
 door and whistled jeeringly at her as she went by. 
 
 The library was void of human presence but 
 warm and murky red with firelight. The vivid 
 glow of the Argand burner, as she touched the 
 regulator, shone upon glittering eyes, scarlet 
 cheeks, and red lips that showed her teeth in the 
 fixed smile of successful cunning. She found 
 what she sought at once. Barton had left " The 
 Story of Walter King " upon the table beside his 
 reading chair. He would be out late. There was 
 nothing to call him home and he was fond of his 
 club. She was quite safe for an hour or two secure 
 from spy and intrusion she and her brain-baby. 
 
 Clasping it to her heart, she wept and smiled, 
 rocked herself to and fro as she would cuddle 
 Baby Nest, did the nurse allow it. There was 
 nobody to meddle with her here. She settled 
 herself in the easy-chair and, finding where Barton 
 had left off, read on and on, until the type began
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 303 
 
 to gyrate queerly in fantastic measure across the 
 page. Her eyes were getting tired. The tyrant 
 above-stairs had prohibited reading so long that 
 the effort tried her strength. 
 
 Still holding the book to her bosom, she looked 
 around. The library was not so orderly as when 
 she visited it tri-daily. There were no flowers on 
 the table, yet she fancied that she smelled Bon 
 Sittne roses, as she had on that far-back March 
 night when she unlocked the door leading into 
 her beautiful, comforting Other World, where no 
 rough blasts shook buds from blowing, no iron 
 hand pressed down Fancy and held in Imagina- 
 tion with curb and bridle. The ash-cup of the 
 bronze smoking table was filled with ashes, burnt 
 stumps of cigars littered the hearth. Seeing them 
 she bethought herself of the truncated brown 
 canoe tossing in the foam-fringe of the tide on 
 the Old Point beach. By shutting her eyes she 
 could reproduce the scene with the minuteness of 
 a photograph ; could see the floating and swooping 
 gulls, silver-breasted against the blue sky, and 
 hear the swash of the waters between the rocks. 
 
 She was dreaming ! It would never do to fall 
 asleep here and be discovered by Barton or Mrs. 
 Ames ! Rubbing her eyes, she forced herself to 
 note that one slipper lay on the rug, the other 
 under a chair, just as Barton had kicked it off. 
 
 " Fie ! fie ! what would people say of a literary 
 woman's menage, were these things seen ? "
 
 34 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 Presently, when her head stopped reeling, she 
 would pick them up and straighten the slumber- 
 robe, all crumpled together on the foot of the 
 lounge, the pillow of which was indented by Bar- 
 ton's head. Sitting bolt upright, she stared at 
 robe and cushion, so eloquent of her husband's 
 recent presence. Her eyes were dry with misery, 
 her features worked into sharpness. She looked, 
 not six, but twenty years older than the hale man 
 who had lain there, indolent and at ease, while she 
 turned wretchedly upon her bed throughout the 
 tedious afternoon. 
 
 Oh, the dead Past ! Oh, murdered Love ! 
 
 " He said that no pure woman would have 
 written that book," she murmured. " He must 
 never know ! Why, he would turn me into the 
 street to-night, if he found it out." 
 
 She crossed the room, catching at the furniture 
 as she staggered along to the secretary. The key 
 hung upon a hidden hook under the drawers. 
 She felt for it, opened the central compartment of 
 the escritoire, and took out an old, roomy port- 
 folio. There were papers in it that must be 
 destroyed. She meant to do it before she was 
 taken ill, but everything had been so sudden. It 
 would never do to leave them for other eyes in 
 case of her death. While she fumbled in the 
 pockets and drew out the MSS. she checked her- 
 self in repeating irrelevant rhymes :
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 305 
 
 " That husbands could be cruel, 
 I have known for seasons three, 
 But, oh ! to ride Vindictive while a baby cries for me." 
 
 " If only my head would be steady and clear 
 again for five minutes ! " 
 
 The portfolio was nearly emptied into her lap 
 when an awful voice from the doorway said : 
 
 " Mrs. Ashe ! what am I to think of this extra- 
 ordinary proceeding ? " 
 
 Mrs. Ames, portentous in flannel gown and 
 curl-papers, confronted the affrighted culprit. 
 Through the open door and down the stairway 
 came the wail of the hungry baby. 
 
 " I only came down for her brother," trem- 
 blingly clutching her book, and letting the port- 
 folio slide to the floor. " I felt so strong ! so 
 well ! I will run up to the little sister now at 
 once. Poor little Nest ! she wants me, I sup- 
 pose?" 
 
 Mrs. Gamp's severe eyes softened into anxiety. 
 She spoke soothingly, in passing her powerful 
 arm around the shaking form. 
 
 " Yes, dear. She wants mamma. Lean on me 
 and don't hurry too much. The stairs are a steep 
 climb." 
 
 Upon the upper landing Agnes, stopping to 
 breathe, smiled piteously into the compassionate 
 face. 
 
 "You see" showing a corner of the volume
 
 306 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 hidden in the folds of her gown " this is as 
 much my baby as the other one, and I knew he 
 was downstairs all alone. You will let me keep 
 him won't you ? " 
 
 " Certainly, dear ! We'll put him to bed with 
 you, right under your pillow." 
 
 "And not a word to Barton?" Putting her 
 lips close to the other's ear, she whispered fear- 
 fully " You know he would turn us both out into 
 the street if he knew." 
 
 " He shan't hear a lisp from me ! " asseverated 
 the nurse stoutly. " We'll have the two of you 
 sound asleep before he comes in." 
 
 She always humored delirious patients. In 
 such cases veracity courtesied to expediency. 
 
 The prime fellows made up a theater party after 
 the club dinner and ended a jolly day with a 
 jollier supper. The silvery tongue of the French 
 timepiece upon the library mantel said it was one 
 o'clock as Barton, entering, was amazed to see 
 that he must have left the Argand reading burner 
 up at full height. A second step showed traces of 
 other occupation than his and of later date. His 
 wife's secretary was open, a portfolio lay wide 
 upon the floor, and the rug was strewed with 
 papers. Before the suspicion of burglary could 
 cross his mind, he trod upon something hard. It 
 was a heavy gold hair pin of a peculiar pattern, 
 which Agnes wore constantly. He had noticed it 
 in her hair at noon to-day, as her head lay back
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 307 
 
 against the cushions, weighed down, it would seem, 
 by the heavy coils. 
 
 Had that hypocritical hag of a nurse allowed 
 such outrageous imprudence in his absence? He 
 examined the lock of the secretary. The key 
 which he believed was kept upstairs by Agnes 
 was in it ; a survey of the apartment revealed no 
 other signs of unwonted disorder. 
 
 " Oh, these women ! " his face, florid with cham- 
 pagne, hock, and righteous choler, crimsoned 
 apoplectically when he stooped for the portfolio. 
 A sheet of paper, covered with his wife's neat, 
 compact chirography, fell out. 
 
 It was in verse, and bore no caption. 
 
 "So-ho! poetry!" 
 
 As in a dream, he seemed to hear Agnes' 
 voice : 
 
 " I am not a bard at all. When I am in the 
 dark, or at best in a half-light sorry or weary, 
 or lonely of heart my thoughts take rhythmic 
 shape." 
 
 At the bottom of the third page of the rhymes 
 was a date. 
 
 " October 5, 188 ." 
 
 He recollected the day. He had gone off to 
 join some friends for a week's hunting, leaving 
 her in a quiet mountain inn. 
 
 "And she was lonely of heart poor little 
 wifie ! " 
 
 He sat down to read :
 
 308 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 " He turned him at the maple tree, 
 To wave a fond farewell to me. 
 The burning branches touched his head, 
 Tawny and ash, and dappled red. 
 Behind him, in still fold on fold 
 As painters lay with leaves of gold 
 The ground on which they mean to trace 
 Some favorite saint of special grace 
 The chestnuts floored and roofed and hung 
 Niche for my hero saint. Down-flung 
 From cedar tops, the wild woodbine 
 Lent pennons brave to deck the shrine ; 
 Barbaric sumachs straight upbore 
 Their crimson lamps, and, light and hoar, 
 Like votive lace bestowed by dame, 
 Repentant of her splendid shame, 
 O'er withered shrub and brier and stone, 
 The seeded clematis was thrown. 
 
 I thought my heart broke in the rush 
 
 Of tears that blotted out the flush 
 
 Of draping vine and burning bough. 
 
 ' Oh, love of mine ! ' thus ran my vow 
 
 ' Let Heaven but stoop to hear my prayer, 
 
 But lift the cross I cannot bear, 
 
 This lonely, living death of pain, 
 
 And give my darling back again 
 
 To longing heart and straining eyes 
 
 To grief and loss in other guise, 
 
 Silent I'll bow, and, smiling, see 
 
 Sweet dawn in gloom that's shared with thee ! ' " 
 
 The champagne had been heady, and there was 
 a good deal of hock. Tears of maudlin sentimen- 
 tality suffused the reader's eyes at the metrical
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 39 
 
 tribute to himself as his wife's " hero-saint." So 
 long as she published nothing of the sort, it was 
 pleasant to find, accidentally, that she wrote love 
 verses in his absence, dedicated to him. He had 
 not suspected how much she felt their parting 
 she had borne herself so heroically. Brushing 
 away the soft moisture, he read on : 
 
 " To-day, I stood and saw him stay 
 His horse upon the woodland way, 
 And toss to me a gay farewell. 
 The chestnut leaves about him fell ; 
 The royal maples burned and shone, 
 Veiling misshapen branch and stone, 
 The misty clematis lay white ; 
 The woodbine from the cedar's height, 
 The sumach's crimson cones, the breath 
 That amber hickories yield in death 
 All were the same. October rare 
 Held sway divine o'er earth and air. 
 The horseman's port was kingly yet 
 My lips unwrung, my eyes unwet, 
 My heart recoils in cold despair 
 At memory of that granted prayer. 
 
 My beautiful dead dream ! The Spring 
 Beyond Life's winter, which will bring 
 Earth's buried ones to love's embrace, 
 Will hold for me no quickening grace. 
 Summers may go, Octobers come ; 
 Deep out of sight, and pale and dumb, 
 Lies the hope that never was to be, 
 My saint who lived not save to me ! "
 
 31 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 He went over the second section of the poem 
 twice before the wine-warmed brain accepted the 
 significance of the lines. 
 
 Then, he swore a little. He would be no- 
 matter-what-ed if he could make out women's 
 fantasies. He supposed this was a fancy sketch, 
 an impersonal rigmarole, altogether, but it was 
 no-matter-what-ed (again) disagreeable stuff for a 
 fellow to read who recollected that he had ridden 
 away last October from a dry-eyed wife into the 
 burning heart of such a wood as was here de- 
 scribed. He did not remember turning under 
 the maple tree, it was true if indeed there were 
 a maple tree at the top of the hill. There might 
 be some mistake in the whole thing, but it went 
 against a fellow's grain to admit the possibility 
 that his wife had another man even in the eye of 
 her imagination. 
 
 He renewed the business of collecting the scat- 
 tered papers. He would read no more poetry 
 to-night, but an unsealed law envelope, without 
 address, lay under the armchair. It was white 
 and fresh, and the folds of the instrument inclosed 
 were crisp with newness. He pulled it out : 
 
 " MEMORANDUM OF AGREEMENT made this 6th 
 Day of August, 188 , between AGNES WELLES 
 ASHE of New York City, and RHINE, RHONE & 
 CO., Publishers of New York City. 
 
 "Said AGNES WELLES ASHE being the author
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 3 11 
 
 and proprietor of a work entitled, ' THE STORY 
 OF WALTER KING, BY JOHN C. HART,' in con- 
 sideration of the covenants and stipulation, etc., 
 etc., etc." 
 
 The shock cleared the lawyer's head on the 
 instant. He perused the document to signatures, 
 seals, and witnesses, refolded and restored it to 
 the envelope, put it back into the portfolio, and 
 the portfolio into the escritoire, turned the key 
 in the lock and took his stand upon the rug, his 
 hands behind his back, his back to the fire. His 
 face was purple, his eyes glared. 
 
 " So much for marrying a literary woman ! 
 They are a bad lot ! " 
 
 He spat it out viciously and a bitter, sounding 
 oath after it. 
 
 The door-bell rang loudly, attended by the 
 sound of stamping feet upon the mat outside. 
 The master of the house answered the summons. 
 The family physician crowded in past him, pulling 
 off his overcoat as he came. 
 
 " How is she ? " he demanded, without pre- 
 amble. 
 
 "She! Who?" 
 
 " Mrs. Ashe ! One of your maids telephoned 
 for me at half-past twelve, from the nearest 
 station ' Come at once ! Mrs. Ashe is danger- 
 ously ill.' Can there be some mistake ?" 
 
 Mrs. Ames called him from the top of the
 
 312 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 stairs: "Come up quick, please, doctor. It takes 
 two of us to hold her in bed." 
 
 The doctor rushed upstairs. Barton walked 
 leisurely back into the library and shut the door. 
 A woman who had sat here reading old MSS. and 
 new contracts until she heard her husband's latch- 
 key in the outer door, then rushed off up a long 
 flight of stairs to avoid him, in such frantic haste 
 that she fell into a fit at the top, might come out 
 of it without his help. He would never be fooled 
 by her again, so help him God ! 
 
 Half an hour went by and he had not moved, 
 although the stealthy rush of feet overhead 
 bespoke excitement and yet caution on the part 
 of the attendants, and twice a faint scream pene- 
 trated the ceiling. At last he reached out his 
 hand for pen and paper and began a letter. 
 
 " MY DEAR UNCLE .: 
 
 " I said to you, jestingly, thirteen months ago, 
 that I would employ you to draw up articles of 
 separation in the event of my needing " 
 
 The pen stopped. He could have sworn that 
 someone passed him, so close that he felt the 
 wind from floating garments, and that there was 
 the odor of Bon Silene roses in the air. It was 
 strangely still overhead. Cold sweat broke out 
 all over him ; when he strove to resume his writ- 
 ing, his fingers were nerveless. Slow, heavy feet
 
 THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 313 
 
 came down the stairs and to the library door. It 
 was opened without the ceremony of knocking, 
 and the physician appeared. 
 
 A withering glance took in the details of the 
 quiet figure at the table, the paper, and the pen 
 arrested in the hand. He went through no form 
 of merciful preparation. 
 
 " Mr. Ashe ! your wife is dead ! A severe 
 shock of some kind the nurse thinks you can 
 explain it brought on convulsions and suffusion 
 of the brain." 
 
 Baby Nest survived her mother but a week. 
 Her father married again, eighteen months after- 
 ward, a beautiful society girl with a tolerable 
 fortune. 
 
 She said a good thing in my hearing the other 
 night, which I offer here in the place of the con- 
 ventional moral, my story having none. 
 
 " What have you been doing with yourself all 
 the winter ? " she asked of a fine-featured, dainty 
 little old lady, whose blue blood adds nameless 
 finish to the fair product of brains and breeding. 
 " I have not seen you for an age." 
 
 " I have gone out to few large assemblies this 
 season," said Queen Mab. " But I have greatly 
 enjoyed certain conclaves of choice spirits, to 
 which I have been admitted. Evenings with the 
 Laurence Huttons, the Edmund Clarence Sted- 
 mans, the Brander Matthewses, and Mr. and Mrs.
 
 3M THE ARTICLES OF SEPARATION. 
 
 William Dean Howells are something to be re- 
 membered forever with pride and delight." 
 
 " Ye-es ? " the priceless lace on bust and sleeves 
 swaying in the languid breeze of her fan. " I 
 have heard others say that some of these Bohe- 
 mians are really very, very nice don't you 
 know ? " * 
 
 * A verbatim report. 
 
 THE END.
 
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