l& ^y&SiGV^V^ wsG^aec^e (LIBRARY] UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA ! SAN DIEGO ! BACK TO ARCADY BACK TO ARCADY FRANK WALLER ALLEN YORK GEOSSET & DUNLAP PUBLISHERS Copyright, 1905, by HERBERT B. TURNER & Co. ENTERED AT STATIONERS* HALL, LONDON Published October, 1905 Sscond Edition, Nov. 6, WHILE this is but small guerdon for the service of love your life has given mine, I bring it, with this truth, believing it will gladden you to know that if my name posse sses aught of honour, or my heart of kindness, or my hands of gentleness, you, dear Mother, are the cause of it all. CONTENTS My Lady o Roses I After the Silence of the Years . . II An Orchard in Arcady .... Ill My Lady and Lovingkindness . . IV Back to Arcady V ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE "Two small, white hands stealing over my face, and closing my eyes" . . Frontispiece "So, in dream-words, I took my Marcia back there in the spring- tune" 72 "Wafted an impetuous little good- by kiss, across the field " . . 107 "And whose, Louis, is it?" she asked 155 MY LADY ROSES MY LADY ROSES >ESTERDAY was the first of June. All day great clouds floated about the sky and near evening it rained. Im mediately before night the gloom in the west was swept away by some invisible destiny, and the sunset crimson-patched the hills and rain be spattered homes until it seemed that a halo of golden glory lingered about the very brow of the village itself. BACK TO ARCADY The little river, that usually comes winding from somewhere between the trees and hills, shimmers slowly by in a cool placid way, and disappears between more hills and trees, was making a most futile attempt to whip itself into a muddy passion. The limestone turnpike, lying between the rows of dripping maples and honey-locust bordering the old flagstone sidewalks, was a-glisten with tiny rivulets ; while everywhere, from the blossoming bluegrass pastures, and the foliage-laden trees, to the wet church steeples, reflect ing the rays of the passing sun, the world seemed to be smiling through tears like a heart-broken woman suddenly made thrice happy with the marks of her sorrow lin gering in her eyes. Like the wild caprices of a thoughtless girl, a shower in June is one of the most beautiful moods in nature, both a deal alike, sweetening life with an apparent pout. A pretty face, happy MY LADY ROSES among the tendrils of silken-soft brown hair playing around the glowing cheeks, is suddenly dropped upon an elbow bent to pillow it. There is a little shudder and a dash of tears; then you kiss the bit of lovely neck left bare above the lace about it, and the laughing eyes are yours again, while her lips are only redder and sweeter from the storm : June coquetting with the witchery of the blue summer sky. Likewise, as there are no storms, only showers, in this season of blossoms, so in the heart of a girl, living the June-time of her womanhood, there is little guile. Neither one nor the other brings aught but the perfume of the flower. There fore I should be glad of the coming of My Lady o Roses, and welcome her as is due the daughter of my long-time friend. I have never seen this child of the girl I knew, with all the heart of me, in my youth. I am trying to be happy and yet, [3] BACK TO ARCADY try as I may, hope sinks within me when I think that this little maid is to find her home beneath my roof and I am to be her protector. Thirty years ago it was said of me that I was as gallant a beau as ever bowed over a fan* lady s hand; and now, as for that, my memories savour delightfully of silk hose and white cockades, sweet ladies, red lips and patches all mingled with occasional odours of hyacinths, holly hocks and roses. To-day, however, I am an old man living in a generation that is past. All of my life has been spent in indulging my whims and humouring my fancies. I am more years past fifty than I like to acknowledge, and now a girl of twenty is coming to upset the habits and routine of a lifetime. That she will like my village, where great sunflowers and hollyhocks bow and courtesy from the vine-covered fences as [41 MY LADY ROSES one lingers along the flagstone sidewalks, I haven t a doubt, for the old town is quaintly picturesque. The main street is nothing more nor less than a limestone turnpike that winds into the town from blossoming bluegrass pastures, takes unto itself the dignity of pavements on either side, then drops over a bit of a knoll and disappears again amid other bluegrass pastures. Its significance is so great, however, that in the earliest days it easily decided the location of the store, the old est homes and churches. The street, of course, was not a turnpike in those days. It was merely a great highway, made most past use in winter by mud and in summer by dust. There were two sea sons only, during which it was a pleasure to ride or walk upon it; they being fall and early spring. Yet because this road, connecting one of the old river towns with Lexington, [5] BACK TO ARCADY passed over the Kingston through a cov ered wooden bridge and climbed a long sloping hill for a straight mile, the town was built. All of this seemed very reason able to the settlers, for there was a mile of road ; the hill was so long, with a grade so gradual as to be barely perceptible; and the glimmering little river, which wound around the southern base watering a verdant countryside, was already as good as running a mill in the eyes of the enterprising pioneers. All of which is true to-day. Afterwhile the mud road became a turnpike, for there is much limestone in the bluegrass country. Then it was perfectly natural that everyone should want to build along the road, and so they did, until the mile of slope had been taken and the friendly expanse of limestone had dropped around a wooded hillside running on toward the next vil lage. There they stopped, for the turnpike MY LADY ROSES ceased to be adequate for a street of any dignity. At the same time the growth of Bluefield came to an end, and immediately the village became old. ... All of this, as I have said before, I believe will find favour in my lady s eyes. Also I am sure that she will love this old mansion, erected by my fathers long before the village was built upon the hill, with its huge Doric pillars that help to shade the casement windows glowing softly through the green-massed ivy. This old home rests far back in the yard from the turnpike, as if it held itself aloof from its fellow hearths of less colonial dignity. With its large wings to the right and left, the negroes quartered in the rear, and the old rose-garden, with the field of poppies to the side, it would warm a heart far less fanciful than that of a romantic young girl. If you doubt the tenderness of my old house come some day and take a peep, [7] " BACK TO ARCADY from the gate, up through the arched lilac bushes that border the walk, at the great old oaken door with its brass knocker hanging there, and see if you do not find a gracious smile of welcome flitting some where -- you cannot tell precisely where - either about the lilacs, or the knocker, or, perhaps, pervading the whole atmos phere of the house. Then, there is my old friend Doctor Blossom with his courtly manner, his bit of romance with Barbara Holly, and last, but by no means the least, his quinine that s a deal good drug for one so bitter. With all of this, I say, My Lady o Roses will be pleased. With me, however, it will be different. Because it pleases me to continue the fashion of living after the manner of the time when the heart of me was young, I choose to wear a square coat with great cuffs, the vest of the court, short breeches and silk stockings with silver-buckled [8] MY LADY ROSES shoes. When I was a gallant beau this was the style, then passing, worn of men* I was yet in my youth when the dress somewhat after the manner of this day became the mode. I like this that I am now wearing because it seems to me more sensible. Then, there are the memories. Ah, I believe, after all, it is the memories ! At any rate she will laugh at the sight of me and despise my wig and snuff-box. Yet she is my trust and there s an end of it. If she needs be loved, there s the heart of me ; if it s sickness, why, there s Blossom. As I have said, I knew her mother in the long ago. She herself was but twenty when last I saw her, and yet to-day hers is the only face that remains clear in my memory. Shortly after I saw Drucilla, for the last tune, she married master William Dudley, the companion of my youth and the friend of my manhood. [9] BACK TO ARCADY Immediately he took the lady to the old house and made her sole mistress there; for the young Colonel s father and mother j & had died some four years before, within eight weeks of one another. The talk is current, even unto this day, that Drucilla was the fairest mistress that ever crossed a Dudley threshold. For a few years theirs was the happiest home in all Ken tucky; for she was good and beautiful, and he loved her with the love that reveals all of the gentle, peaceful truths of life. Then when little Marcia Dudley My Lady o j Roses was born, the mother died, and for awhile the light of the husband s heart went out. "It is in the silence that follows the storm," says the proverb, "and not the silence before it, that we should search for the budding flower." And sorrow is silent. So terribly silent that the heart hears the soul s unutterable cry of an- [10] MY LADY ROSES guish. Soon, however, the father found the budding flower in the little daughter who cooed and smiled and pointed with her tiny fingers to his haggard face, as if to say, "Why look so friendless, so love less, when you have me for your very own? I am now your Lady o Roses." When, for the first time, this thought found place in his suffering soul he hugged the wee girl closely to him and his sorrow became beautiful, and in place of suffering there came a great peacefulness that sur passed understanding. So, as the years flew by, they made out of her a wonderful bit of a girl with much beauty, I ve heard, and a merry heart. This lady, however, could not have been more than fifteen years of age when the father, dying, sent me, post-haste s a letter begging me to take his only child and guard her as my own. Remembering only the love of my youth and the friendship he bore me in E"] ,:-. -VT BACK TO ARCADY the elder days, I consented. For reasons, which I may hereinafter make clear, I had the child educated and sent abroad without ever having seen her. Now she s tired of it all, she writes me from Paris, and is coming to "our home," she puts it, to live with me. Coming home to a soft hearted old grower of roses. Yet this is June and there s the shower! It augurs well. I will be frank. It is not because of the coming of My Lady o Roses, who is twenty and who I know is round-limbed and sweet-faced; it isn t that my old heart hasn t longed for the like o this, these years; neither am I afraid she will laugh at the manner of me, and all, that I do not want her. No, none of these things! It is because I fear this little maid o ? twenty will come to me in the quaint fashion of the long-time ago, with the rare and tender beauty in her face [12] MY LADY ROSES that was her mother s when the heart of me was young. II I feel as if I own Bluefield. My sire, in his youth, was the possessor of every foot of its earth. Of course when it came to me the villagers were the proprietors and I but master of the old family mansion, its great yard and the field beside it. That which remains of my grandsire s plantation lies in the bank down town in the shape of a small deposit which enables me to maintain the house of my fathers somewhat after their fashion. The townspeople, in that most of them have been my neighbours for long and know the simple story of my life for once gossips having done me a goodly turn allow me the pleasure of their pastures for my roaming as though they did not hold the title to the land whereon i i* 1 BACK TO ARCADY I trod. But after all I still have left most everything to my heart s desire. I ve the home that for more than a century has hidden the sorrows and has been the abiding place of the joys of my ancestors, cherishing the hopes of a long line of good and manly gentlemen and keeping holy the loves of women some of whom were the most beautiful in the land. Then I ve a few horses left, for in them, too, is the spirit of my sires, who saw all the ma terial beauty God gave the world through the face of a woman and the grace of a thoroughbred. To them their women were to be most beautiful that after them they might judge the action of their horses. Therefore were I to be master of the mansion without also being master of a stable the blood of my fathers would refuse to warm my body. Yet, as was the glory of these men of old, I have no woman to lend the beauty [14] MY LADY ROSES of her person to animate my silent life; to light the household by the brilliance of her eyes, or make more wholesome my very soul by the gentle sweetness of her presence. Aye, did you not know about the coming of My Lady o Roses I fear I should cause you to believe that my home is too devoid of joy to hear more of it. Therefore I hasten to assure you that, even if Marcia were not coming, you are wrong. That if I haven t a woman s laughter to awaken the echoes of the old mansion, and her eyes to look sweetly into yours when you are my guest, and the passion-waking beauty of her lips for the kisses of my love, that I have the dear memory of it all which is wonderfully sweeter to me than could be the pleasure of her presence to you. Then I ve that which takes the place of a woman not she, you must understand but of a woman as nearly as one thing less beau- BACK TO ARCADY tiful may supplant that which is most beautiful. I ve my rose-garden, in which grow and blossom my roses. They are my women. There is my Marguerite, my Rosalind and Juliet. And sometimes, I m thinking, when old Dinah becomes over vehement in the scolding of her master, that after all my roses have suited me better. Then there is one man without whose friendship I could not have met courageously the years of my life. The very medicines of Henri Blossom are good for the soul. As the seasons pass me by this green old garden is filled with hyacinths, violets, and tulips in red and gold crocus, crowfoot, loose-strife and St. John s-wort - all of these and others in the spring time s wholesome days; then the purple fringed iris, life-everlasting and late berry- briars come in midsummer; and the fall, yellow-decked with goldenrod, the jewel- [16] MY LADY ROSES weed and gentians, asters, and the crimson splendour of leaves a-falling. All of these, and more, I have said, come and go, be it in the fragile freshness of spring or the ripe haziness of Indian summer. This entire time the roses are blooming, radiant and resplendent in the wonder of their beauty. The Maytime blossom of the apple trees is all blown away ; the milk weed casts its lightsome seed adrift; and the pollen of the goldenrod makes yellow the stone of the garden wall; but the roses bud and unfold the warmer sunny days through, and are subject to the air of no season other than brings the frost of winter. Quite recently, because of a horse whose legs failed in their fleetness, hin dering me the winning of a goodly wager, and, because of the arrival at most the same time of a rare lot of plants for my garden, I discovered I d have to emulate BACK TO ARCADY the example of my sire and part with my field, or lose the promised roses. There fore, some two weeks ago by my calendar, I sent a letter to young Henri Blossom, nephew to my good doctor in the near-by city, and asked him to advertise my field. In this announcement, which may seem somewhat full of words to you, part through my desire to make attractive the surroundings, and part that my pen always lingers lovingly over anything having to do with Bluefield, I told of the green and blossoming countryside, bor dering my little laughing river, with now and then a wooded pasture stretching away to the hills, which form the wonder- waking beauty of the valley. "There are villages, of course, at inter vals," I said, "giving a glimpse of flat-rock sidewalks with fennel and peppergrass growing along each side of its central path, while old-fashioned homes peep [18] MY LADY ROSES over the bank and through the willows. . . . Now it may interest you to know that on the most beautiful bit of this stream, just within the quaint old village of Blue- field, there is for sale a field. The land, " I wrote, " covers ten acres and there are many elms and maples with a host of apple trees." I said "host of apple trees" for there were some eight or ten gnarled and knotted bearers of this fruit remained of the once great orchard of my grandsire. And then, in season, there are my poppies, silken-soft and crimson, that lift then- sleepy faces to the blue of the sky. All of these things I wrote young Blossom, and waited. This morning I began the placing of plants I had saved by deciding to sell the field. My mood was not a good one for the cultivation of roses. I was not at all pleased with the thought that most any day the playground of my youth might [19] jtfACK TO ARCADY become another s property. This fit of ill-humour, coupled with the interest of the work, was the probable reason that I did not hear the approach of footsteps, for I was startled upon suddenly hearing a voice say, " I beg your pardon, sir, but are you the owner of this property?" I did not answer for most a minute as my indignation was near beyond my con trol. To think this vapid, unenlightened dealer in real estate had invaded my rose- garden. That he would bring the sordid- ness of his commercial world there and attempt the driving of a bargain in a garden of great blossoming roses. All the sentiment of my nature rebelled at the very thought of it. I arose and looked at this prospective purchaser determined to tell him that I had nothing, absolutely nothing for sale. "Yes," I at last answered, "I own the property." [20] MY LADY ROSES "You advertised this field for sale, I believe," he said, pointing toward my apple trees across the hedge. "A mistake! A mistake!" I said as gruffly as I might. "I have nothing whatever for sale, sir!" "Oh!" he exclaimed softly. "I again ask you to pardon me. I I am sorry I have made this mistake." "Don t suffer any uneasiness," I re plied, "only watch as you go out being careful not to let your clothing brush against my bushes." I am ashamed to this day of that speech. It was one of the few times in my life I have not been all of a gentleman. "Good morning," he said, and walked away toward the gate. Now I ve a very tender place in my heart for jacqueminots. I do not see that it is necessary to say why; but I d have you know that it is there. And just within [21] BACK TO ARCADY my garden gate I think I have the most beautiful variety of them I have ever known. They have had my care and culture for many years. Well, when this stranger reached the jacqueminots he stopped quite still for probably one minute gazing at them, his face beaming in genuine admiration. Then, as if recollecting that he had been almost ordered from the garden, he quickly turned and continued toward the street. Dropping everything that I held I started running, with a loss of much dignity and an inconsistent regard for rose bushes. The man was most to the front gate before I succeeded in catching him. "Come," I said touching him upon the arm. "Come; I ve a notion that I may sell the field after all." So we returned more slowly to sit upon a bench just without the garden s gate, [22] MY LADY ROSES And, though the roses could not be seen, the air was wonderfully wholesome with the pervading sweetness of their perfume. Ill I thank God for dreams. They are the lotus of our eventless existence, the anti dote for blasted hopes and the flower whose perfume brings oblivion to yester day s regret and to-morrow s pain. I bow my head. After all it is my poppies that bring forgetfulness. So I am ever grateful for the dreams and the sentiments, be they seen through the curling haze o the tobacco in my pipe, in the embers and ashes of the grate, or in the silken-soft petals of my roses. ... I cannot deny that most all my life I have bended my knee to dream-things, and have offered my sacrifices upon the altar of the beau tiful. Men first live for ideals, then [23] BACK TO ARCADY ambition, and lastly for appearances. Destiny has kept me young in one respect -I have never ceased to believe in my dreams of the ideal. Therefore it was purely the sentimental in me that caused the recalling of this stranger whom I had rebuffed rudely but a moment before. It was a day-dream of a vast friendship and an appreciative companion. Maybe it was the looks of him that helped. His face bore the marks of many things. There was good breeding first of all, and culture and refinement and understanding. There was a bit of dissi pation, too. Then there was his closely cut hah*, once black, but now white- patched about the temples, speaking plainly of a life of unusual activity. His features were those of a young man, but they bore the stamp of some suffering and much sorrow. A man who had long overcome the little early reverses [24] MY LADY ROSES that at first make life so disappoint ing, but afterward sweeten it with beau tiful memories. He is now my neighbour in that he has bought my field. I have read somewhere that one should love one s neighbour as one s self, and I m trying. I think I succeeded a bit on yesterday when I said to him: "Will you come into my home and share it with me until you have completed your cottage in the field?" " Only upon condition," he answered. "May I sometimes just go out to the hedge and look through it into your rose- garden?" "No," I replied, placing one hand upon my heart and showing him, with a cour tesy, through the gate. "No; but, if it pleases you, sir, you may come inside my garden and meet every rose that blossoms there." [25] BACK TO ARCADY With a smile he walked through the gate and together we passed up the walk beneath the oaks and chestnuts that shel tered the proud, but ever courteous, heads of my sires. It was good of my neigh bour to forgive so kindly. Did you ever know that it is the little kindnesses that make the only happy moments of our life? I say "happy moments," for in your world, I ve a notion, happy days - holding in utter contempt happy weeks and years are the inventions of poets minds. There is no supreme joy in the big events of life. It all lies in the littlest ones. It has been the custom in our home for generations, upon coming under the roof for the first time, that the master person ally conduct a guest to the bed-chambers. And now, after the manner of my sires, I showed Louis to his rooms. As we passed down the hall he courteously lin- [26] MY LADY ROSES gered, now and then, to gaze upon the portrait of some of the Marshtons of an elder day than my own. The walls are fairly covered with canvases and most of them are by masters. In passing, my guest inadvertly looked into the blue-room that had been prepared, and was awaiting the coming of My Lady o Roses. Im mediately before Marcia left for Europe she sent to me, for safe keeping, a canvas that had been hung quite recently on the side of these apartments, opposite the door, and between the two great windows looking into the rose-garden. It was a portrait of the mother of her, Drucilla Dudley, as a girl of twenty years. When my guest saw the picture he stopped quickly and caught his breath as if stricken with both fear and surprise. Then, with an effort to control himself that made the whole body tremble convulsively, he fol lowed me on into his rooms. BACK TO ARCADY "It will not seem mere curiosity? . . . You will not think me discourteous," he asked, after resuming his ordinary man ner with, perhaps, a bit of uncontrollable agitation in his face, " if I were to ask you the name of the lady whose portrait we saw in the blue-room? " The question seemed a bit personal on so short an acquaintanceship. Also I felt somewhat jealous that his alien eyes should have gazed upon this lady of my young heart s worship. Then, remem bering the look of anguish that over spread his face, I felt the sympathy that is akin to love. "She," I replied with bowed head, "was the friend of my youth. She has been dead these twenty years." When I looked into his face imme diately after, relief and compassion were mingled there, and the smile upon his lips was born of a gentle heart. [28] MY LADY ROSES "I was almost sure," he said as I was leaving him, "that I had seen the face before. ... Of course it was a mistake. I could not have known that woman - your friend. ... It is very strange." "Very strange," I added as I passed down the hall to my study and my pipe of tobacco. I am a much older man than Mr. Hathaway -- perhaps I d forgotten to say that my neighbour is Mr. Louis Hathaway. He is barely thirty. But from the moment he entered my house as my guest I knew him to be the truest gentleman I had ever known; and, moreover, my friend, Louis, and I will call him that henceforth, was very reticent from the first, and the most I have of his history, previous to his coming to me, is that which I read in his face. Summing him up roundly as I may, I love him. And it is good for a man to love greatly another man. Es- [29] BACK TO ARCADY pecially it is good to love a young man for my eyes are not the eyes of youth. I know this for the reason that as I would sit of past winter evenings before my driftwood fire and dream of the years that are gone, sometimes I d suddenly discover that my gaze had left the flickering blaze and was resting ominously in the gray ashes beneath the andirons. It used to be that somewhat quietly I d go back to the light and begin the dream once more, only to be startled again by the lifeless ashes of the burned-out logs. After a while, though, the ashes became more beautiful than the fire. They were not eating away the remains of another life, but, rather, were the aftermath of a goodly oak. Then they didn t hurt my eyes like the brighter lights above, and the few red coals scattered among them reminded me that, after all, ashes do not always mean death. So, now, they are [30] MY LADY ROSES my white-haired old age, smiling peace fully and lovingly from the one-time hot and passionate youth. There is a conso lation in them to me, in that they have burned. They once lived! Once they made the flame and they have earned the right to be ashes. They are a great deal more completely beautiful than the black, charred ends of the logs that went out. Ashes are the emblem of the life well used. So, when I begin my dreams in the brighter firelight, and finding my old eyes grown weary, end them in the ashes, it isn t so bad after all. The thing to remember is that there could not have been ashes if it hadn t been for the fire. And do you know I ve a notion that Louis s is a life that the fire, in making it strangely sad, likewise has made it won derfully beautiful, and the story of it all lies in the ashes. BACK TO ARCADY rv In my rose-garden there is a sun-dial. If you remember, the jacqueminots are near it, and there s a seat carved in the stone where one may sit and watch time ripen the red of the roses and then, fickle lover, shrivel them until they are but memories. Many s the time, in the old days, that Drucilla and I have rested upon that bench, or leaned over the dial, and talked of things now too long dead to tell, while I entwined the blossoms in her hair. This morning, knowing that Marcia would arrive by the coach sometime during the day, I went into the garden to rest on the old seat and look at the opening of the buds. Somehow it is there that things untangle, and burdens seem to drift away on the perfume. I wanted, perhaps for the last time, to think it all [32] MY LADY ROSES over about Drucilla and the heart of me. When a man needs such stuff as sym pathy he seeks his lady of the loving heart, and, if there be none, he turns to memory, therein finding peace. And, as a man can never wholly blame for any thing a woman he has once loved, I wanted to speak, after all of the years, with the soul of me concerning Drucilla and the love she may have borne me. Aye, how the memories rush in upon me from the boy to the man. They over power me and I am helpless like unto a woman in the abandon of passion. Dru cilla was the first child-sweetheart I ever knew. I can see her this day as a little girl, wild, full of caprice, and beautiful. I remember I was living here at the man sion and she most a mile further on in the country. It was a wonderful old home, that of her childhood, crowning the very top of a rugged, wooded hill. I was a [33] BACK TO ARCADY boy most grown before we ever saw one another. That is, I was twelve or fourteen and she some years younger. Then I came to school in the village and she was there. She dressed better than the other little girls. It seemed that she possessed more innate sweetness, even to the shoes she wore and the ribbon about her hair, than any girl-child I have ever seen. It is useless to tell you how beautiful she was, with the tenderest of great gray eyes, the most kissable mouth, and the warmest of sun-flecked hair. Of all women I have ever known and may ever know, none can have the exact place in my memory that is Drucilla s as when a child. I was a mere boy with a mind as clear and clean as the native ah*, and she she will always be the angel of my memory. Then there came womanhood. This lady of my joyous days was, of a surety, [34] MY LADY ROSES a woman who counted the years of her life by the springtimes. Hers was a young heart a-blossom in a body that one day would be wonderful in the delicate- ness of its babyish beauty, while to-mor row would find therein a marvellous strength usually belonging only to men. There were moments when she seemed the most veritable of fragile things and soft, talking and thinking like unto an innocent, petulant, and spoiled child. Being small of stature, sweet-faced, and round-limbed, she always seemed as one to be protected and humoured. Yet this last was far from being true. Quick to act and quicker to think, betimes there would flash from her a brilliance that would cut with a keenness seeming to kill the spirit of kindness in her eyes. In those moods she would dare to do anything. Wild and full of passion, it appeared as if she would break hearts but [35] BACK TO ARCADY for the chance of healing them with her gentleness. Those days the softness of her flesh would seem to depart with the simplicity of her heart, and the strength of a line of the noblest of sires was hers, and the heart of her was true. Her wit was as subtle as sometimes it was cruel. She was frank like unto a youth; hers was the honour of a man ; the beauty and the playfulness of her made of all men lovers. So, this lady of my old days was to be loved in gentleness and in passion; to be fought for; to live for, that she might bless you by her presence ; a woman for whom men would not fear to die. And she she, from the depth of the heart of me, was the truest woman God ever gave the world. Then there came a time when I sat here on this seat and wondered why love, beautiful passionate love, was compared to Heaven and with God. And it seemed [36] MY LADY ROSES that I knew. It was for the reason that they were unattainable. Two vague, mysterious dreams that butted out their lives against the first rough walls of reality. And Hope ! Hope, I thought, is a liar that seduces and points to the wall. ... I remember, how well! . . . Oh, I believed it then. There was much of bitterness in the heart of me. But now the great sky, the stars and my perfumed world of blossoms have given it all the lie. Memories soften the heart and we forget the sting of pain. While I thought there came startling me for the moment two small, white hands stealing over my face and closing my eyes. Then there came to me a delicious thrill that was most maddening. I reached and took the fingers into my own. They were warm and very deli cate and pink-tipped. Slowly I bore them up to my lips, and then a seemingly [37] BACK TO ARCADY familiar voice, like a memory from the past, asked: " Guess who? " "It s you!" I answered. "Yes," was the quick reply, and she stood before me straight and blushing like unto a rose. "Drucilla . . . Drucilla!" I cried in most unutterable anguish. My heart seemed to burst and the blood to choke the life from me. I clutched at my throat the breath would not come. . . . Then, mercy of God, I fell, pros trate, striking my head against the dial. When next I opened my eyes to the light of day I was lying in my own bed, the curtains of which were pulled closely together. I was well with the exception of the weakness that follows excitement or fatigue. I felt my head and found it bandaged. Stealthily peeping from the curtains I saw the room was filled with [38] MY LADY ROSES a profusion of my roses those con densed blushes from the cheeks of South ern women. There, too, reading one of my old volumes from the library, sat the vision of my Drucilla. Upon her face was written a veritable paradox of char acter. She appeared both haughty and tender, gentle and severe, then chaste, then seductively naughty. I stirred un easily and fell back, somewhat exhausted, upon my pillow. After a while there came a voice, strangely sweet, that said: "Please do not be frightened. . . . It s only Marcia. ... I am my mother s daughter, sir ... May I open the cur tains for you?" [39] AFTER THE SILENCE OF YEARS AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS >T was all a mistake about my heart being old. She doesn t mind a bit my manner of dressing. I think she rather likes the ro mance of it, and I am decidedly happy at having about me the freshness and vigour of her young girlhood. I ve dis covered that I had lived too long within myself. My life has been a pipe, old [43] BACK TO ARCADY books, roses, and memories. That is good and I find I have been happy. Very likely it is after this fashion I shall end the living of life. Yet, I ve a notion that a house, even a mansion, does not become all of a home until there is in it a woman. I am pleased and my sires have ceased to frown down upon me as I tread the ancestral halls. My Lady o Roses, in coming into this world, must have been given the spirit of her mother. My fears proved true, only now I m glad. Marcia is the reincarna tion of the Drucilla that has lived these many years in the heart of me. Hers is the same beauty, only, if possible, it is more wonder-waking; there is the same childlike spirit; the same flashing, strong character. Truly in this girl there is fashioned the strongest mixture of the spiritual and the animal beauty I have ever known. Her intellect is like unto [44] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS that of a man, yet in her there abides the tenderer, etherial instincts of the feminine. Then she is soft and round with full, red under lip bespeaking a passion that is immediately denied by the innocence of her eyes, as blue as deep water. Because she has lived much in France, especially in Paris, and has seen more of the world, the daughter, perhaps, is wiser than was the mother. She knows me only as her mother s long-time friend. That is, unless I babbled in my silly fright, and I do not think so or else I had been told by Louis. He and my lady met when I was being carried, unconscious, from the rose-garden. I re gret not having been able to present these two, if for no better reason than to have enjoyed the pleasure Louis would have experienced in looking upon one who is the very image of the portrait in the blue- room. When I, in a mood of mocking [45] BACK TO ARCADY jest, formally presented them they seemed to be annoyed by my pleasantry and assured me that they had met before. I do not see why it should have been par ticularly unpleasant, even if I was most dead, for them to have met as they did in my rose-garden. At any rate they appear to be good friends and I m content. If My Lady o Roses had not liked him it would have troubled me no little for I ve learned to love this man. Marcia will talk little of him. When I see them alone they seem to talk seriously enough and to be interested in one another. In my presence, however, she is given to teasing him a deal. At first I feared because of this, as she does not care how sharp is her blow; but he apparently likes the sting of the lady s tongue. Perhaps the sweetness of the smile that is given with the words atones for what otherwise would be severe punishment. [46] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS The cottage in the field is complete. It rests at the top of the single knoll within the place among the oldest apple trees. It is, you ll remember, in the fur thermost corner from my mansion, and, there being no other dwelling nearer, it is distinctly alone. From my library window it may be seen across the great beds of poppies like unto patches of stain from a sunset sky in June and there seems to be nothing of the newness that possesses recently built houses. Yet, as I have said before, it appears to be lonely. When I look out over the hedge of roses it always seems as if the owner had just closed the doors and gone upon a journey. In fact, did I not know he desired my companionship by his persist ent efforts to have me with him, I d think Louis was playing the hermit. So he is, after a fashion, for he seldom sees anyone other than myself. He wanders about at [471 BACK TO ARCADY will in my green old garden, reads under the shelter of his own little home, or lies idly gazing at the sky from beneath the gnarled branches of his apple trees. These great trees that were planted by my grandsire and that are ye old-fash ioned Southerner to the heart of them. " Their blossoms," I have said to him, " are the colour of our ladies cheeks, sir ; their fruit makes the best apple-jack on earth; and their hospitality is so great that they have enhanced the beauty of your cottage and are blossoming in May- time, for you, sir, who are not a Marsh- ton." His is a beautiful cottage. It is not exactly like anything I have ever seen before; but it is built and furnished after such a homelike fashion that one fully expects to see some lovely clear-eyed woman walk into the room and welcome you to the court wherein she is Her (48) AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS Majesty the Queen. The voices of merry children in laughter at their play would seem wholesome and also would afford no surprise. You really expect this, so gladsome has this master-builder fashioned into the real the dream of his home. In the building of this cottage the right wing was made to look out upon my hedge of roses and the old mansion of my sires. The front room of this, I now re member, was made larger than the others, and completed soonest. Into this room Louis has never shown me. I haven t asked about it to be sure, for it is no business of mine. But he s terribly mys terious about it. I ve gone over to his home on more than one occasion and found him within this presumably sacred place. Yesterday he slipped out hastily, closing the door as if he feared I d see. When I looked at him his face bore an [49] BACK TO ARCADY expression that was near to being devout. Sometimes I think he is sort of a pagan and keeps an image in this place and does the worshipping of idols after the fashion of heathens. Perhaps there s a little altar whereupon he offers sacrifices. At any rate, be it idol, shrine, woman, or all three, I leave Louis s doors closed the way I find them and there the matter ends. As I ve said before, I love Louis. n This morning brought a summer rain that has not yet ceased to fall. I love books next to roses and the out-of-doors ; but, as the beauty of a young woman lends a living richness to the flower, so is a grate fire the complement of an old volume. Thus it is that I reserve all of my reading for the coldest days of winter. It is only the severest sort of a thunder- [50] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS storm that drives me indoors when all the world s a-blossom. However, as I have said before, it has rained all day. In the forenoon I went to my library, pulled down my Shakespeare, and, with a bit of tobacco and my pipe, began the reading of "As You Like It." It s a stupid old man that can go to sleep reading this little comedy so alive with peo ple after my own heart ; therefore, I ve a notion it must have been the patter of the rain upon the window and the smoking that did it. Anyhow I was awakened by the book closing with a bang and drop ping to the floor. When I opened my eyes it was to stare into the mischievous countenance of My Lady o Roses. "I wouldn t have awakened you," she said the next moment, " only it s impera tive." "It s nothing serious I hope," I cried, fully awake, springing to my feet. BACK TO ARCADY "Very," she replied gravely. "It s very serious. . . . You must help me," she added appealingly. "My lady," I replied, bowing over her little hand, "the world is yours. Least wise my part." "You will, then?" she asked eagerly, with merriment in her eyes. "On the honour of a gentleman," I replied. "It s a ball," she cried excitedly. "Let s give a ball. A real old-fashioned one and make them dress like like you ! We ll have Doctor Blossom, and Louis, and all the country folk." "If it pleases my lady," I replied. "Come," she said reaching for my hand, "let s go to the ballroom and plan the whole of it." The ballroom of my old mansion is large and a bit dreary. The place has not been used for anything since I became [52] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS master, and it is much like unto a cellar. It had been left to the care of old Dinah and I had not seen it for a matter of years. This long-time place of merriment was filled with too many memories the pain of which now proved past forgetting. When we entered, closing the great double doors behind us, and opened the shutters, flooding the old room with light, it seemed as if the recollections born of each nook and corner would overpower me. Marcia walked about examining the tapestries and portraits. As for me, the violins of other days sobbed and pulsated a-down the years until for me there was now no future, no present, but only the past. It is strange how we remember sorrows with a deal less suffering than these tender joys, long gone, that come wrought with such unspeakable pain. . . . Once again I could see the gaily bedecked dancers and smell the perfume of the [53] BACK TO ARCADY laces and gowns. Before me I could see a tall and manly youth clad completely in white satin, leading the minuet with a fair and lovely girl whose eyes, glancing furtively from beneath her powdered hair, danced quite as much as her dainty toes. The rosy tips of the fingers of her right hand were held tightly in the gentleman s, while with the other she coquettishly lifted her silken skirts just enough to disclose at each step a bit of an alluring ankle. The youth s kindly face was flushed with the wonder of her beauty as he cour teously watched each graceful movement of her supple little body. Once she must have thought his fingers tightened about her own, for she turned and glanced into his eyes as I have wanted but one woman to look into mine in all of a lifetime. . . . the memories, the memories that are the manna of us who have become old! It is passing strange how the past is [54] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS made a part of the present. A bit of forgetfulness, a few living and tender memories, something of the old environ ment, and it is so easy for sixty years to become but twenty. . . . My Lady o Roses, fair and expectant, was standing before an old painting of a rather delicate young man, and the youth in the picture gazed back at her, his large, brown eyes seemingly awaiting eagerly for each sweet word that might fall from her lips. I, too, standing just behind, was looking upon myself as a lad of some twenty-four years of age. " I wonder, when you were young, you did not love and marry some lady, some time, somewhere," she said, not taking her eyes from the picture. . . . "You must have been so kind and good and gallant," she continued, "and I ve heard father say that mother thought you the handsomest man she ever knew. And " [55] BACK TO ARCADY She ceased speaking quite suddenly, for here I took her hand in mine and slipped my arm about her, while she without knowing why nor how allowed herself to yield. Then I bowed my face above her own and felt the warm kiss I pressed upon her lips. Quickly realizing what had happened the girl jerked rudely away and started running toward the door, tears of anger and chagrin coursing down her cheeks. Before she reached the curtains, though, I had caught her sleeve ; and now, coming to myself and realizing what had hap pened, I kneeled with bowed head, holding tightly her trembling hand. " Forgive me ! Won t you forgive me? " I pleaded. "Oh, if you only knew, you would forgive me! You spoke of love, of my loving . . . and if you only knew how I loved and what it meant to me, you would be kind. . . . You would for- [56] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS give me now. . . . Oh, must I tell you when she never dreamed it true?" The girl s anger had fled, and she looked compassionately, pityingly down upon me, near heart-broken, and listened while I murmured over her small white hand: "It was your mother in you that made me. All the years before she died I loved your mother, child, and not one word or caress did I give her of it. ... Oh, it was your mother in you that made me!" Then My Lady o Roses stooped, very tenderly kissed my brow, and whispered: " Had I been in her place, I think . . . oh, I think I should have loved you always ! " III It was a bright Sunday morning in my quiet old village of Bluefield. A beautiful, serene peacefulness lay about the quaint, [57] BACK TO ARCADY moss-shingled homes that seemed to find its origin in the pure sunlight that fell lightly, like a refreshing shower in April, cleansing everything, from flagstone side walks to sin-sick souls. The sunshine seemed to be running and bubbling and gushing with joy and good-will. The turnpike stretched its white length through the town, and, curving around a green knoll, disappeared as if swallowed up in a blossoming pasture. Here and there an ancient looking family carriage, drawn by a jogging old horse in Sunday harness, could be seen rolling toward the "meetin - house." The silvery clang of the church bells might be heard for miles across the fields, and their tone was that of love and peace. Though no two had just the same sound, there was no discord. The min ister of each could have told you this. So it seemed that from the country, from the town, from the earth and sky, from [58] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS the hearts and from the bells, the one tone was peace, sweet peace. In due time I walked out and leaned against one of the pillars. I was dressed ready for worship. For more than half an hour I stood watching the song-spar rows and robins flit among the purple lilacs that still were wet and sweet with the dew. It was truly wonderful how the birds carolled and warbled and trilled, and rolled their little throats, now standing atilt on a blossom, then fairly falling gleefully to a tiny twig, and all the time never ceasing their rollicking song, as if actually drunk with the sunshine and the dew. Afterward I walked thoughtfully down to the fence, which was completely hidden from sight by the great mass of morning-glories clambering over the lichen-bearded rocks. And now in the early morning the hedge seemed a huge bower of white, purple, blue, and crimson [59] BACK TO ARCADY glories; glories as crimson as the deepest hues of a sunset sky. I love them because they close their delicate petals during the hot, busy day, blossoming only in the early morning for the pure sun and the first song of the red bird. Like all sweetest things, though, they are unconsciously cruel. I remem ber to have come out about noon the other day. . . . They were closed then. . . . And I found a bee, a little honey bee, that had been so intently sucking the nectar from the glory s slender throat that he had been trapped and shut up in the lovely crimson prison. He was so dazed and intoxicated when I released him that it was several moments before he was able to fly away. ... I found another silken glory, too, where, when the flower had begun to close, the bee knew of it and might have escaped; but there was yet honey in the tiny crimson throat for [60] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS him. After the blossom had closed and given all of its sweets to its lover, he had roughly thrust his hairy legs through the delicate prison, forsaking, and leaving a torn, ragged hole in the fading petal that lay dying in its crimson beauty. . . . Ah, little bee and pretty flower, I thank God that you were made irresponsible. Then, instead of going out through the gate toward the church, as usual, I re turned to the house; and, seating myself before the library window, idly watched the bees as they flew hither and thither about the lilacs and the morning-glories. Much to the uneasiness of my old body- servant, who soon came bearing a Sun day julep having more mint and less whiskey than during week-days I or dered him to bring down the old cedar chest that lay in the dustiest, most remote corner of the garret. Knowing not the real malady he must have believed me BACK TO ARCADY ill. Whatever may have been the cause, nevertheless, as I sat by my window breathing the cool, perfume-laden air, my memory wandered back over the days of my youth to the time when I learned to love the beautiful girl who afterwards married William Dudley. I well remem ber the time, the only time, when I tried to speak to her of the love in my heart. Probably it is because it was on just another such a Sunday morning as this that I recall it so clearly now. I had walked home with her from church, and the day was so full of beauty and love, and she was so fresh and sweet, like the sunshine and the breeze, that, as I looked with rapture upon her flower-like face, breathing the perfume of her pres ence, I impulsively lifted her hand to my lips and would have told her all had we not suddenly realized that we were in the village street. Before the next Sunday [62] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS she had gone East to visit, and finding life intolerable without her, I wrote of my love and asked hers in return. How well I remember this letter. It was a boyish, passionate story of love, which showed a clean, pure heart s worship for an immaculate, simple girl. One passage I recollect clearly: "I long for you, dear lady, these days, and live from week to week on the mem ories of the hours we have spent together, as a worn, aged man dreams of the beau tiful years of his childhood a-living again in the mind of a life most past. Now I am living my second love for you. And though it is sweet even the little quarrels are sweet there is something gone, something missing that was so much, almost all, of the other. And that, sweetheart, is you. You are gone!" Then her answer! It came tastefully in a little box of silver and gold that might [63! BACK TO ARCADY have been made for a lady s jewels. With eager fingers and trembling hopes I opened it, and there, quite innocently, lay a little red mitten. A yarn mitten! One of her own. I had seen her wear it, with the mate, a hundred times. . . . Suddenly the truth of it all rushed over me. I had been rejected rudely, shamelessly jilted ! Hurt beyond measure, I snapped the lid of the box, without even removing the little glove, and cast it into the very bottom of the cedar chest in the attic. There it has remained untouched for years. Shortly after Drucilla returned, as you know, she married William Dudley. Al though her treatment of me seemed cruelly incongruous, I have never wholly con demned her for it. It was so unlike the girl I loved that I could never think of the two together. This morning I sent Marcia to church [64] AFTER THE SILENCE OF THE YEARS with Doctor Blossom who came a-riding by. I thought it would be as Christianly a thing as I could do to remain at home and destroy every link of evidence against the name of the mother of the girl who is now under my protection. I wanted to burn out the wrong that always has been my secret. So I ordered the old chest down, intending literally to burn, on the hearth, every vestige it contained, not trust ing so sacred a task to a servant and a bon fire. I chose Sunday because it, in a way, is a symbolism that still my faith is strong. Opening the chest, which now had been by my side for some time, I was greeted with a perfume of pressed flowers and cedar. Lifting out each package care fully I soon came to the corroded little box that had rested for so many years hidden away from the world. Carefully raising the lid, I found the mitten within, not even faded, just as it looked when [65] BACK TO ARCADY first I saw it. Somehow, now it did not bring anger and chagrin as before; but rather my heart quickened with a longing and a love returned doubly strong after the silence of the years. Impulsively - just as I had lifted Drucilla s small hand in the long ago I suddenly pressed the mitten to my lips. The feeling of tenderness quickened with astonishment. Going hurriedly to the win dow I eagerly thrust my fingers into the tiny glove and drew forth a small bit of note paper. Turning to the light I spread the missive open, with trembling hands, upon the casement, and read the simple lines: "I love you, dear lad, and send you this that you may claim its owner when she returns. Your Drucilla." "0 God, I humbly thank thee," I cried, dropping upon my knees, "that it was I who erred, and not the lady of my heart s desire!" [66] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY H, my Drucilla, once again I m twining roses in your hair at the old sun-dial. My children the jacque- minots, Marcia and Louis -- think I m lonely. They do not know that most all of the life of me I ve kept you from without my heart s door, and that only yesterday did I become as humble as a little child that I might enter ths kingdom of love. You I found [69] BACK TO ARCADY again in an old red mitten, and heaven opened to the like of me in a bit of faded paper where your hand had traced the joyous message. So I meet you at the dial as in the olden days. Then youth must needs have soft caress of warm- parted lips to be sure o the soul s passion, but nowadays I find I love thee better nestling deep within my heart. All day long I sit here with my pipe - it s an old man s comfort and you will not mind while I watch the play of Louis and My Lady o Roses. It rained this morning, early. One of those big, spattery, warm springtime rains, you ll remember, like we used to love to get out in and look up at with bare faces while it pelted us with its soft, lucid drops. Didn t you like to squash the cool mud between your toes? Then we d be called in and scolded by old mammy. Afterward we d go attic-ward, for that was next best. [70] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY /, / s Well, an old man who pets roses and rheumatism cannot go bareheaded in the rain o springtime, so I went to the old attic longing rather lonesomely for the dream-talk of used-to-be. There were , . ( \ the same most the same, for there were / , > - * some additions ~ old trunks and dusty, broken-down chairs that served as mail- clad horses in the Golden Days. I pulled the old, high-backed plush chair the one with the broken rocker that was always your throne when you were the Princess Cherrylips near the rain-bespattered window where I could look out upon the roses in the garden. ... I was hardly seated when Marcia came stealing in saying as how she had trailed me by the scent o the baccy. She drew a stool - the one that used to serve as a step to the throne and sat beside me with her hand clasping mine. As we sat a-dreaming, my eyes looked BACK TO ARCADY way beyond the garden and the poppies into the orchard of our youth. Then My Lady o Roses looked into my face and asked that I tell her of when the mother of her and I were children o the bare feet. And I told her some of the things. Some how, as I talked, it seemed that I was lazily wandering with the boys and girls again, coming home from school through the woodland. So, in dream-words, I took Marcia back there in the spring time, and it was as if you were with us idling along the path through the wood land. Now we are passing through the sweet- scented red and white clover; straggling by a field of green, rivery, rippling wheat ; then running down across the hillside where the late dandelions, hardy little messengers of summer, peeping out of the grass here and there, fringed the path with rich yellow splendour. [72] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY Next we are in the orchard, where the apple blossoms, blown off by the gentle April breezes, are drifting lazily into the long, wet grass. The drowsy, droning bumble and honey bees stagger and stum ble by on lazy wings, as if loaded down with the honey stolen from the abounding blossoms. A robin sings in the gnarled old apple tree hard by, while a lazy south wind brings the sweet smell of an April shower, hardly an hour old. We linger here a moment while I jump and grasp some low-hanging boughs that bring a shower of white petals and fresh rain to the earth. Then you ll remember, dear Lady Loveliness, I climb to the topmost branch to get the sprig of pink apple blossoms, like the color of her cheeks, for Drucilla. From the orchard the path winds under low-hanging beech and elm, where the cardinal sits upon the topmost branch, BACK TO ARCADY pouring forth his heart in a song of joy. You can tell he feels that the skies are blue, and the grass is growing. Here we stop and gather the first spring flowers, shaking from them the drops of fresh, sweet rain. A step farther on, and we are walking through a stretch of rich open woods, where the pale sweet cowslips, Drucilla s favorite flowers, bloom in the late spring. The delicate white ones, nodding grace fully on their tall stems, always remind me of her. It is hardly time for them yet, but they are coming, for the clusters of smooth, dark green leaves have already begun to shoot forth from their long, bare stems. Now the path winds along the brook- side, where the cattle splash and drink, and chew their cuds the livelong day, under the spreading old sycamore where "Drue" and "Tom" are cut, one above [74] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY the other, deep in the white bark; and a heart there is just below, with "D" and "T" in it. Then zigzagging through the cattails and water-lilies, where the lazy bullfrog croaks at twilight, we pass over old stumps and rotten logs, and old and new blackberry briars, into damp, dark places; dim, cool, moss-covered dells, and flower-strewn glades, where the shy chip munk peeps from the moss-grown log, and the bushy-tailed squirrel springs from the old rock fence to the young walnut hard by. Here the sweet, blue violets grow around the rocks and roots of the trees, and the crowfoots and crocuses shoot out of the damp earth the first pledges of blithesome May. Here I gather buttercups and violets for Drucilla, the violets to match the blue of her eyes, the buttercups the gold of her hair. Now we lazily climb, resting a moment on the topmost rider, an old lichen-bearded [75] BACK TO ARCADY worm fence, with a broken rail, and jump with our bare, brown feet into the cool, wet mud of the corn field. We rake, as we go along, the mud from our toes upon the long, wet grass that fringes the path. We stand amid the green shoots of corn and listen to the crow as he croaks from the dead limb of a solitary oak, and "Bob White" as he whirs away from his perch on the old rail fence, piping his name as he goes. On goes this path to Arcady until we let down the barnyard bars and go up the lane, lined with maples and honey-locust, among the lowing cows that have come up to be milked and are standing close to the gate, gazing longingly toward the hungry, frisky calves on the other side. Then we go through the old gate, with its one hinge at the top, and under the fragrant lilac bushes in front, around the house and into the kitchen, where old [76] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY Aunt Mossy is getting the supper, and preparing the table on the side porch for the first time this year. Here at the old mansion, in the twilight s purple haze, amid the lowing of the cattle and the neighing of the horses, with the negroes just in from the fields amid the clash of harness, and the thump of the corn as it is thrown into the feed-box, and the rattle of the sweep as it goes down into the well to fill the moss-covered watering-trough, with the mint growing where the water steals over the sides, with the smell of frying ham from the quarters here ends the path, like all paths, at home. It was made for two pair of bare feet two were sturdy and brown, two were slender and pink in the Golden Days of thy mother, Marcia, and her Lover Lad. "It s like a path to Arcady," she whispered. "We have been back to Arcady," I [77] BACK TO ARCADY answered, looking down into the eyes that were raised to mine. "I love you," she said. And for the first time in her life My Lady o Roses held her lips a-pouting to be kissed by mine. Then she slipped away. The rain had ceased and the sun was kissing the pas sion-red petals of my roses. I hurried here to the dial to tell you, for it seems as if the kiss now burning upon my lips is a part of the Golden Days, too, and Arcady. II Do you remember that once upon a morning in rosetime you stood for more than half an hour holding your arms for the buds I cut from the hedge until there was scarce a bit of you to be seen above the confusion of blossoms save the splen did red of your mouth? And you have [78] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY not forgotten that I, thinking it to be the most wonderful rose of them all, would have kissed it only that I might give it you as the sweetest flower the garden ever grew? Then, of a surety you remember, it was the finger-tips I must needs take instead? (It was you, I think, first dis covered the mistake.) . . . Dear Lady o my Golden Age, adversity, I pray, has sweetened me, and it s hard I ve tried never to complain of what life has pleased to give me; but it s the finger-tips I ve always had and never the rose-red mouth of Love. ... I love the finger-tips, Dear Heart o Mine. This morning, while I sat in the shade of the southmost pillar watching the bees a-honeying, Louis came cutting roses for the arms of Marcia. Perhaps it was the memories I think it was, dear Lady, - but when Louis saw, from the mass of alluring, red buds, the blossom of her [79] BACK TO ARCADY mouth, he made the same mistake as mine of the rosetime day, and I thought not to warn him! . . . Now from the heart of me I am thankful, for neither did she discover it, though her arms seemed to lose their strength as the blos soms fell in profusion at her feet. Then Louis kneeled and gathered them again. Ill My Lady o Roses and I sat out in the light o the moon to-night and listened as Louis told us something of his early life. We were his guests under his apple trees. When he had finished I left them, for an old man like unto myself is often in the way of young hearts, and, besides, my bedtime is near to nine by the clock. He began when the father of him, a swashbuckling young Virginian, was com- rsoi AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY pleting his education in France, and, at the same time, giving his State an oppor tunity to forget a duel in which he had proven more skilful with his sword than was good for his liberty. As was common with young Americans and Englishmen of his day he tramped over a consider able part of the country. The necessary wherewithal was a knapsack with a change of clothes, a book or two, a few francs, and a cheerful heart. It was while on just such a jaunt through the province of old Picardy that he met with the adventure which was to shape his entire manner of living. Without the city of Amiens, in the shadow of an ancient chateau, the boy became a man and the heart of him awakened. He had stopped by the side of the road way for a bit of lunch and a pull at his bottle of Burgundy when there came from the garden, hidden by the wall against BACK TO ARCADY which he rested, the tones of a violin. He was attracted by the spirit of passion ate longing that the player seemed to draw from the instrument. It talked to him, it sung weirdly to him, it cried pleadingly to him, and then filled his blood with passions breaking to birth and a prayer for the unfulfilled of his life. Then, when it seemed as if his very heart would break with the burden of the song, the music ceased. He had never heard anything like that before and he sat in deep amaze. A moment later, without the instru ment, he heard a voice singing a song of more Southern France, for it was a warmer, more intense bit of music that might have been the words to the mood of the violin. It came to him clear and sweet from the throat of a girl - no woman could have possessed so art less a simplicity of voice. With the [821 AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY same spirit of adventure that lengthened his sword arm in Virginia and that sent him tramping over Picardy, he drew him self to the top of the wall and sat upon it, looking down upon what he swore to his dying day was the most beauti ful picture he ever beheld. The gables and turrets of an old chateau stood in their mediaeval splendour just across the opposite wall. Within was the enchant ing disorder of an old garden left to ruin that wrought the wonderful out of chaos. Half way the plot, near a summer-house, lay a violin upon an ancient sun-dial. Nearer him stood a maid a-berrying while she sung, her words interrupted by each berry having to find a way into her warm red mouth. She was a nut-brown, round- throated lass with cheeks like unto leaves a-crimson in autumn time. Her hair was very black and her full lips, berry-stained, made him think of Villon s maH e [83] BACK TO ARCADY Picardy with her sweet, red, splendid kissing mouth. When she turned to him she was a bit startled at the sight of this six feet of loose-jointed Virginia cavalier that stared into her wide, surprised eyes. She must have seen nothing worthy of fear, how ever, for she smiled quite friendly and offered him a wee, brown hand holding a palm full of berries. "You you," she faltered charmingly, "are the Boy I ve seen all of my life when I d shut my eyes and think. ... I was playing to you a while ago did you hear it ? " He nodded appreciatively. "It was my mother taught me," she volunteered, "my mother who died when I was passing fifteen. . . . What s your name, Boy?" The Virginian smiled provokingly, like a man who feels his experience and age over that of a child-woman. [84] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY "In Virginia," he said, "I m known as 1 Red Hathaway, but I reckon my name s Rob." "I ve never known your name," she said, "I always called you Boy. You see," she hastened to add, "I knew you just as a boy." "It s Boy I ll always be to you," he said. "I m Margot o the Crimson Lips," she said, planting a berry on the pink tip of her tongue. "I knew it," he replied, slipping from the wall to her side. He reached for a berry and their hands touched. His heart ceased to beat; all a-tremble he stood, choked and unable to move. She seemed not to know, but a moment after turned toward him and held her face near to his a space, saying: "The violin was my mother s, the ah" you heard me playing was hers. For [85] BACK TO ARCADY generations it has been handed down from the founder of the family. Every one who has played this magic music has, when they met their love, forsworn to play it again until they won the longed-for heart. . . . When I saw you, Boy, I knew I would play no more until until " She stopped suddenly and then quite fiercely commanded: "Kiss me, Boy!" and held her crimson lips teasingly a-pout. Then before he could realize it she had darted down a pathway to the chateau, picking up her violin as she ran. Climb ing back over the wall he drawled musi cally : "Margot o the Crimson Lips, you won t have to quit playing your violin cause you are going back to old Virginia with me." That was the beginning of a beautiful and romantic courtship. It began hi a [86] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY spirit of the purest fun and carelessness of love, and came near ending in the direst of tragedies. Each day Margot would call her love to her with the low tones of her violin, and each day he d clamber over the wall to kiss the Crimson Lips. Love grew, as love does, and then came the pain of the knowledge that always comes that it must be everything or nothing. It could not be nothing with the Virginian any more than it could with the Crimson Lips, so, on a day appointed, with much fear and trembling, her Boy duly appeared at the chateau to see the Master. Dante was mistaken the foulest part of hell is reserved for those unnatural offsprings of perdition who will rob love of his birth right for the sake of a false pride. This father, who proved unworthy of the name, preferred to doom his daughter to a life time of ruinous unhappiness rather than let her marry an untitled gentleman. As [87] BACK TO ARCADY a consequence, three months later, to prove herself true to the love given as soon and frankly as the berries, this Margot o the Crimson Lips must needs leave her home, a despised and disowned woman, and come with her big-hearted lover to the land of his birth. She was a wee bit smaller, and her face a deal sadder on the parting than in the sunshine of the garden that morning three months agone ; but she knew that love would heal her heart and that joy and happiness alone lay in the hands of the lad beside her. And it was thus that little Margot o the Crimson Lips brought her true heart to the sunny fields of old Virginia hi the days of my golden youth. Meantime the duel, in which Hatha- way s sword had proven too keen upon a man of great political influence, proved itself unforgotten; and, after a short visit at the home of his father, they must needs [881 AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY come to Kentucky where, after a year, our Louis first looked upon the light o day. Theirs was a happy life, these three in their little home with love therein. And there, beside this Mother o Love, he learned to speak the French tongue along with his English his mother s Picardy and his father s Virginia drawl. Most of all, when he could scarce hold the in strument, Margot she was still " o the Crimson Lips" -- began to teach him her violin. Long, long hours they spent be neath the trees in summer; followed the winter s fireside, and from that time until his seventeenth year such was the best part of their life Margot, the violin, and her Boy. They never grew tired o the playing the Boy heard in the garden of the chateau, and Louis learned to be a master of its yearning sweetness. Yet, as Louis sat and told his story, I could not help wondering at one thing so [89] Jyv, ,5- > y-y-s, -/? BACK TO ARCADY strange never a violin had I seen in Louis s cottage, nor had the sound of music ever come to me across my hedge o roses ; I say I wondered and then I put my wonder into words : "Yes," he replied hesitatingly, at my interruption, and, I thought, annoyed, "the spirit of the violin has left me. I never played again." Politeness held my tongue, yet I wonder why he should never play again. Then comes the "rival" as Margot chooses to call her. It began when he was a mere child down in the village school, and she was a wee bit of a girlie. They were play-fellows and made mud pies, kept house, and duly adored the violin and the quaint little mother of Louis. It was in his seventeenth year, however, that there came the true Rival. A malignant disease was sweeping the country with great fatality. It was then [90] AN ORCHARD IN ARC AD Y that the swashbuckling young Virginian and Margot, she o the Crimson Lips, went hand-in-hand, like the true lovers they were, a-down the primrose path on a longer journey than to the pastures of Kentucky from the fields of Picardy. " As it had to be," said my Louis, "I was glad it was together, for there must be no parting for such as Crimson Lips and her Lover Lad." Louis went to France, for he looked upon it as the one place where the future might be kind to him this land o his mother s youth. It was there he com pleted his musical education and was enabled to make his way because of the beauty of his playing. He was penniless, you know, and had to work very hard. The struggle was severe, but the desire to attain was greater. He uprooted every tie that bound him to domestic living and forgot the past of life for sake of the BACK TO ARCADY future. But it was right here at this forsaking of things at home after the death of his father and mother that he paused a moment in his telling. (I won der, now, at his strangeness in wishing to tell this bit of history in the manner of an allegory. Of course it may have been an eccentricity; but I am rather inclined to think it is a part of the "mys tery" with which he enshrouds himself. If he chooses to bury his personality, disguising people and places, it is his pleasure ; but I ve a notion it will clear up very soon and not unfavourably. ... He must have repeated this story often to himself, for he told it fluently, not hesi tating on words, choosing them with skill.) "I believe," said Louis rather slowly, "that here I made the first vital mis take of my life. For it was during those days I left Her Majesty the Queen, then [92] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY a mere child, concerning whom I must speak to you after my own fashion!" Then he told this story of Her Majesty the Queen. " It was in the half -forgotten olden days when a youth stood and talked to a fair young girl of his life, his future, and his opportunities. " Opportunity, he said, has not come to me yet. I am watching, though, day by day, and I know in what guise I shall expect Her Majesty the Queen ! " Love, love has always been mine, 1 he continued. She came into my life long ago with you. You, with your sweet and delightful beauty, have crowded al most all of the visions of the other things I believe are essential to happiness from my mind. Oh, when I think how long, dreadfully long, the road is that leads to success; when I think of the work, the bitter, tiring work, that must be done; [93] BACK TO ARCADY When I think of the weariness, the sick ening world-weariness that lies before me, when I think of all this my falter ing spirit near turns away, heart-broken. "He gazed into the large, tender eyes of the girl for a while and his face sof tened. How lovely and good and simple and sweet she was ! And his heart ached when he heard her gently whisper: " Sweetheart, love, I ve discovered, is the one thing in the world that, as long as there is a mite of it, grows greater from what was apparently the greatest, and sweeter from that which seemed sweetest ; and truer from truth itself. . . . That s how my love grows for you each day. "After a moment s hesitation a brief struggle the expression of the man s eyes became cold and stern, and he said: " But now I am coming to myself. Opportunity will not recognize me with [94] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY love, and the struggle with life I must brave. So you must leave me until the other things come and I have attained them. Love must wait. " Oh, do not send me away, pleaded the maid. I am love and I am oppor tunity itself. You do not recognize me. I am Her Majesty the Queen! Queen Love. Queen of Hearts. Let me remain with you, who are life and love and wealth and fame to me. Try me! For love s sake, try me! " * No, replied the youth almost cruelly. You must go. Opportunity is to come to me as gold and fame. ... As for love - ah, well, I may have love any time. "With bowed head and humble mien the maid left the lad and wandered away. Then, as the years passed, he grew to manhood, searching long and earnestly all the while for Opportunity. . . . The man became old, his form bent, and he [95] BACK TO ARCADY tottered as he walked. And as he went his world-weary way, he murmured always, * Her Majesty the Queen will come once to every man, and to me it is to be as gold and fame. "One day, after having repeated those words over and over again, he stopped in his work, and suddenly looking up, added, And love! Ah, love, I can have love any " Quickly breaking the sentence, he half shouted, half whispered in his cracked old voice : Where is the maid ! Where is the maid ! She is right, Love is life. Love is all. She was Opportunity in the guise of love, and gold and fame were hid beneath her mantle. Ah, he whispered, where is the maid ?" After he had finished I merely smoked on in silence. There was nothing I could have said. "Some few months after I left my [96] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY home," he said, once more resuming his thought, "I found myself in Paris, in orchestra, at poor pay and no encour agement. My mood was an atoning one and I would to God it might have lived. I wanted to leave, returning to home and love. It seemed, however, that I was destined to be a sort of Wandering Jew in the guise of a wandering Gentile. If you knew all of my life in detail you would be aware that since the day of my birth I had shifted in more places than a Methodist circuit rider. And again, it has been my fate to always close behind me the gates when I leave, and instead of shaking the dust from my feet which I would be loath to do those I am leaving shake their garments of all that might be of me and are careful that I come not so close in the future. In fact, I ve almost turned kith and kin against me at times. [97] BACK TO ARCADY "Just before coming here I thought, now that I ve again closed the inevitable gates, it is time to move once more. . . . And I ll do this in the hope that Provi dence will be kind enough to me to allow my weary heart and tired feet to walk over mine own peaceful threshold, sit near to those I love best on earth, and remain beneath my roof and shade trees until my spirit passes on into the unknown eternity from which it came. "You," he continued, "may think it passing strange in me that I left the friends of my youth and success and came here to live the hours away where I seldom if ever see the face of but one man other than myself. But you, who have come nearest to understanding me of all the world, will again understand, believing that which I tell you to be true. I did not run away from sorrow, for, you know, I am no coward. I did not run [98] AN ORCHARD IN ARCADY away from the fame, either, which the world has chosen to give me; nor did I leave my friends without a pang of regret for the years that have passed. But, my dear friends, believe me when I tell you that my wish, my dream of reparation, was to get nearer to the little within me, and - and to God. ... To make an oblation of my ambition that thereby I might be worthy of love. That I might be fit for the gentle heart of the woman I one day hope to place upon the throne in my home. That is why I built the cottage in the field and there s a room awaiting the coming of this Queen o My Heart s Desire. "Ah, how often have I said that home and peace were the chief aims of my life, and yet I am driven from pillar to post, not having a sweet memory of the former, and only a hope of the latter." "But," I said as I arose to go, "you [991 BACK TO ARCADY have your peace, your friends, and your threshold. . . . You have your cottage in the field." "Yes," he answered as he looked out over the blossoming field. "But the maid? Ah, where is the maid?" liooj MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS HERE is no subtler poison in the human heart for the killing of love than doubt. Lust, I ve sometimes thought, in either man or woman, knows nothing sacred and is the strongest of all passions. But, at least, it is more open; distrust stabs in the back. . . . Good Jesus, help me to believe in my friends! ... All day my brain has reeled with unhealthy thoughts, [103] BACK TO ARCADY the rankling of uncertainty. And for this reason during the afternoon I came here to the woodlands. At such a time my heart turns instinctively to the trees, the black earth, and the wild things of the out-of-doors. On leaving the mansion I walked down through the old wooden bridge by the mill. The white turnpike, warmed by the heat of the springtime sun, stretched away for more than three dusty miles between the fields of wheat and hemp, then, running abruptly over a wooded knoll, disappeared, apparently, in a blossoming bluegrass pasture. Of course, upon my going wearily to the top of the hill, there it lay again, threading its way by an occasional tobacco patch, an insipid pond, and farther on a farmhouse built colonial fashion. I stood for a bit of time on the knoll, leaning on the lichen-bearded stone fence, and looked down the road, catching a glimpse, through [104] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS a dust-cloud, of a thoroughbred driven to a break-cart, and a wandering darky gath ering wild strawberries from the road side. Rather lazily I clambered over the stones into the shade of the great trees that cast their shade far down the hillside to the spring that bubbles at its base. And there at the roots of a goodly oak I lay with my head propped upon my elbow, biting the tender stems of the bluegrass while the short-horn steers eyed me won- deringly and the sheep nibbled the sour- grass which grew in the dampest earth. The breeze came sailing across the pas tures, laden with the perfume of the hemp mingled with the odours of the woods beyond, and gently lifted the hair from my heated brow. Turning upon my back, and gazing through the green wilderness of leaves toward the wide blue sky, I marveled at the great goodness of God. Yet, within, the heart of me was sore. . . . [105] BACK TO ARCADY First, instead of coming here I had gone to the dial in the garden; but My Lady o Roses, I discovered upon approaching the seat in the stone, was before me, and from the sobs I heard there was nothing else to do than seek my trees of the woodland pasture. Louis has been gone three days. There has been no message from him since he went away. Doubt gaunt, wrecking, poisonous doubt is killing the spirit of me. . . . To-morrow, it is true, is to bring him back again, yet it seems that my heart will break if I cannot see him and hear his explanation. ... It is a woman s inalienable right to play the coquette, but for a man it doth belittle his manhood. . . . Ah, it is hard for me to believe that for a summer s pastime Louis has toyed with the heart of My Lady o Roses. . . . Last Monday morn ing, early, I was lying abed waiting for [106] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS my bath, when I heard the coach rattle up and stop at Louis s gateway. I hurried to the window in tune to see him enter the vehicle that disappeared in a whirl of dust down the road. I saw Marcia furtively watching him from behind the hedge and jj,\ she wafted an impetuous little good-by kiss, across the field, toward the receding coach. Then it was, my first misgivings came a-hurrying. My lady loved him! And my thoughts went guiltily back to the hedge and the remembrance of the rose-red mouth kissed from amid the blossoms about it, and the look in the eyes of Miladi as she lifted her face to his. Then, in the orchard, he came telling us of a love born long ago of Her Majesty the Queen. . . . My good Jesus, that a man could trifle so! Hurrying to dress I began what proved to be a fruitless search for Marcia. First, I walked to the garden, for in the morning [107] BACK TO ARCADY my lady is usually there among the roses. Failing to find her, I went into the house and directly to her room. As I lifted my hand to knock I heard a half-suppressed sob within. "Marcia," I called softly. There was another little pitying sob. "My Lady o Roses," I called again, "may I come in?" She came to the door and turned the key in the lock. Then I went to my room and, since then, things have seemed to be becoming more mixed every second of time. She even avoids me, and why, I cannot conceive. She, Drucilla s child, of all the world, is the last I d do one thing to injure. And as for Louis, you know that I love the man. So, at last, I ve come here to un tangle things and see if I can understand the why and wherefore of the conduct of Louis and my lady. [io8J MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS Now, the smell of the pennyroyal is decidedly more pungent than in the earlier afternoon, and the earth appears cooler down where the creek disappears in the woods. The cattle have left and are standing belly-deep in the pool, while the sheep have wandered off to the other side of the hill for the last bit of sunshine. I, too, have left my oak, for I believe I can think better moving over soft earth. Coming by the spring, apparently leaping clean and clear from a bed of great, green-leafed mint, I drank by lying down flat on the stone by the side of the stream. The water seemed like the essence of everything beautiful and cool and fresh of the whole springtime world. The clear, deep sky; the fresh soil; the invigorating green life of the grass and trees! All of this should clear my mind of doubt and bring understanding. Here in the denser woods the soil is [ 109] BACK TO ARCADY black, odorous, and soft. The grass is less abundant, but the hue is a fresher green. The air is lighter and the dense shade rests every sense. Great thickets of tall blackberry briars grow here and there. An occasional rotten log, covered with damp smelling moss, lies half im bedded in last year s leaves. Now and then a chipmunk darts playfully about the trunk of the same tree that a red headed woodpecker is thumping full of holes at its dizzy top. These are the voices of the woods, and they whisper faith, hope, love. ... Of a surety the woods have made it clear. There s some reason my lady knows and it will come out good and well. When the arti ficial things of living become hopelessly tangled, then lie closer to the earth. Nature is a loadstone for troubles. After all the heart of me is glad with the joy of living. Again I may go into [no] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS the green old garden with my roses, my sun-dial, and the memories of the elder days. Pure from ungentleness, I may sit upon this rock-hewn seat of my youth and look out upon the blossoms and the trees a-bloom in the field, seeing in it all naught save beauty and the joy therein. The past is wrought of goodly memories, now the dream-stuff of my declining years. The future is built strongly of greathearted happiness born of the love that understands, is full of kindly sympathy, and knows not the sting of doubt. Please God, give us more love that trusts. n For the first time in all of my life I feel that I am an old man. My age seems to have come on me suddenly like unto a fever, and the weight of it bears upon me. [in] BACK TO ARCADY This is because of having built once too often the dream-man that experience should have told me was a futile under taking. I see that I have been given to creating my own friends instead of accept ing them as they were wrought out of life. But enough. This morning upon returning to the mansion from my usual walk I went into the library and sent for My Lady o Roses. ... It has been said that there is no woman like unto another; but I, who have at least known one of them from the de profundis of despair to the height of passion s bliss, know that of women there are two kinds only. There are those who are steadfast and those who are not; those who are proud and others that are humble ; those who are good and those who are wicked ; yet all of these are but two women; there be women who have the gentle mercy of forgiveness in !> MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS the hearts of them, and there be others who have it not. Marcia entered the room with an air of mystification about her every movement. There was wonder in her eyes and a look upon her face born half of surprise and half of timidity. In truth it was the first time in her life she had been summoned in this manner. She had never seemed quite so beautiful, quite so palpitating with the vigour of health. I was of half a mind to save her the pain of discussing with her so personal affair as the infidelity of Louis. Suddenly I had not even said "Good Morning" she exclaimed: " You have guessed it. . . . I knew that you would. ... I couldn t tell you that which was not all mine to tell." All of this was timorously, falteringly said. Then impulsively, "But but you will forgive him?" Eagerly, pleadingly, "You will, I know that you will." ["3] BACK TO ARCADY "But my lady " At my words, and before I could finish, her very attitude bespoke astonishment. Then near fainting, she fell into a chair. I hastened toward her, but she motioned me back with a wave of her hand. Re gaining her strength and composure by a most painful effort, she began to talk rapidly and excitedly in a disconnected manner like unto one who had much to tell and little time for the saying of it. "Listen to me!" she said, her eyes snapping with indignation born of the moment. "You must understand. . . . I knew him when we were children. We were in the village school at the same tune. We played and planned and fought as one he a vain youth, and I a mere child. . . . Then he went away. I knew about it all. I watched him in his career. And oh, you cannot know the joy of seeing my old friend win success; you MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS cannot know the anguish of a woman s heart when the one man, for her, proves a weakling. You cannot know," she sobbed, "for to know is to forgive and understand." I crossed to her side and, kneeling, took her hands, trembling, into my own. "Then I heard him in Paris," she con tinued, "before he came here to you and the cottage in the field. He explained it all to me and, though I would not listen then, I understand now. ... I know all and you shall not judge," she said fiercely, "until you, too, have heard him. ..." "I am not the man, please God, who would deny any soul a hearing," I answered. " I knew yours was a heart of mercy," she replied gratefully. "We women," she continued, "are prone to forgiving overmuch where love is. But," she said, as if in a burst of confidence, "I had BACK TO ARCADY much rather love a gentle man, withal that many weaknesses might be his, than one without feeling. I despise these stern, just men. . . . Yet Louis is not a weak ling. ... He is very human," she said. "My child," I ventured, "you have seen little of life and I ve a notion know less of the follies of men. Men, knowing a bit of the weaknesses that beset the best of us, usually love the women they fear to trust ; but marry those whom they respect. You, my dear lady, will marry where your heart lies, withal that the man may prove a sorry husband. Often the men receiving the greatest love are least worthy of it. ... Marcia, my child," I asked, "who knows the strength of this man?" "Ah," she cried scornfully, "you doubt his being a man. . . . You who do not know the fight to conquer that has been his; you who have only seen the victory; [116] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS you would damn him because of his for- getfulness. ... He is strong," she said firmly, as if I had said some word to the contrary. "He has seen and suffered, sinking to the very depth of despair; yet he has battled with pain and risen to the heights. ... He is like Dante. He has lived in the very meanest hell and passed through it to paradise. . . . Ah, my good friend, you have suffered, but you have never been degraded. Your sorrow be came a great strength to you ; why cannot sin these mistakes of life purify? . . . Believe me, this man is worthy of your respect, your confidence, and your love." "But, Marcia, after knowing all of this," I said in all gentleness, "you may love him, but can you trust?" She sprang to her feet, every bit of her pretty body a-tremble. "I love him!" she cried. "I love him more than you, ["7] BACK TO ARCADY than all of life, than the memory of my mother. ... I do not care what he has done. It would matter not if he had committed every crime known to men. I care not whom he may have sinned against. It all amounts to that," and she snapped her fingers most in my face. "There is but one meaning in all of the past years, but one in all the future may bring, and that is, I love this man ! And loving him there is naught else but con fidence. It is true that I doubted him once, as you shall hear, but never again." "Oh, my poor child," I cried in pity for her, "and he loves this other woman." She stood white and rigid, with horror and fear written upon her troubled face. "This this Her Majesty the Queen," I continued as well as I might. Then, as is the manner of her sex, my lady fell all a-heap upon the floor, and, pillowing her head upon her arm, sobbed piteously. [n81 MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS I kneeled beside her. "Of a surety, Marcia," I said, "thou art thy mother s daughter. ... I, too, love Louis." I raised my lady s face, so full of the haunting memories of the long-time ago, and kissed the sorrow from her eyes. Then she sighed very tenderly and smiled way down into my heart. "I m so relieved," she whispered. "Relieved? Please explain, dear Mar cia." "Why, I am Her Majesty the Queen," she laughed. " It was your Lady o Roses that wouldn t have him a few months ago in Paris. . . . That s why we both came here not knowing one of the other s coming to get over it, you know. . . . I thought you d guessed about us, and that he d written you about his going away and that you were quite angry with him for not standing by me anyhow!" [119] BACK TO ARCADY "Louis going away to stay?" I asked. "We quarrelled and I sent him," she sobbed, once more pillowing her head upon her arm. "He returns in a day, but to leave again." After a little while we went into the garden among my roses, for there my thoughts are always kindliest toward all men. . . . These are youthful days be cause they are springtime days. One s life must be so. Forget not the blue of the sky and the perfume of the rose and the heart of life will be red for you. . . . Ah, Dear Heart of the long ago, these children need such stuff as love. Ill Of a surety I have learned that a most insignificant whim, betimes, will ruin the sweetness of a whole life s love. We live as if this were just the first of many lives [120] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS and with the presumption that we shall be enabled to correct the mistakes made here when we have won our immortality. It has taken me most of a lifetime to learn that the only heaven we may know hereafter is the Love we take with us into the Afterwhile. Can I know a more joyous eternity, dear Girl o my Golden Age, than the love which first awakened my soul to the sweetness of your presence? So it was with My Lady o Roses and the lad of her heart s desire. Because work and sorrow, fame, and the illicit pleasures, ofttimes born therewith, came between a careless boy and the girl of his youthful dreams, she doubted, when once again the light of her eyes awakened the old passion, the sincerity of the words he would speak to her heart. The story is best told by the letter Marcia trusted to the heart of me : "My dear Marcia," he wrote, "to-night [121] BACK TO ARCADY finds me once more attempting life - this time for you. The old reckless joy of living has lost its savour and the past is dead. . . . Ah, Marcia, when I met you on a day in the Paris we love too well, I knew that I had not chosen the most blessed gift of life. There had been moments of fear before the sight of your face dispelled all doubt. . . . How kindly you received me ! How generously you overlooked my seeming negligence! Miladi, you cannot know from these words how beautiful you were to me when I found you. You were a woman, full grown, with all the wonder-waking beauty that nature could bestow upon you. "Then there hovered about it all, angel- like, the pristine freshness and innocence of the girl you were in the dear old days. And I knew that I loved you the first moment you lifted your eyes to mine and [122] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS their gentle light shone from beneath their lashes. I pressed your hand - perhaps it may have been uncalled for - and the crimson that stole across your cheeks and mounted to your brow was as that of the dawn flushing the eastern sky. Your lips trembled. Then I loved you. Oh, those months we spent as old friends. I was almost your lover again when my life it came between me and all that was good in you. And you are all good! Well, it all may have seemed worse to you than it really was, though I will not defend one hour of it. "The world had given me fame and in so doing opened the door of my private life. The door to that which was not for other eyes than my own. They, the world I mean, knew it all. (Thank God, that is now almost forgotten.) But when I told you, and asked you to become my wife, you remembered it. At first, when you BACK TO ARCADY placed your hand in mine and gave me the sweetness of your lips to kiss, you forgot, for love is made of such stuff. Then, having seen something and heard more, you ask me of the past. How, in the light of your eyes could I deny the truth. The dear eyes that I loved and do love, with all of the tender, faithful pas sion of a lifetime. For I do know that I loved you almost all of my life and that God placed the love there for you, and you alone, knowing it was for you, long before I ever knew the beauty of your face. "Shall I ever forget the painful horror in the expression of your eyes and blanched cheeks when I said to you, though my heart most broke in the telling, Yes, Marcia, I forgot the love ? Never! And yet, like the woman I love, you forgave. ... So you sent me to become a man. A pure, clean-souled man; and already I [124] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS feel the power that God and you have wrought in me. "As for the future, there is but one thing that counts. The wealth, the fame, the possible immortality -- but trifles these. ... It is the love that is in my heart for you that I cannot crush. It is there, a flame burning steadfastly, faith fully, and without shadow in its intensity. This love the light in my heart that burns for you I cannot help. God lighted it, and, it being Divine, He cannot destroy that which is a part of Him. . . . But you, who have nothing left of the man you loved, will not be shadowed by the ghost of a dream. This dream-man of yours did not prove true and he will pass from your life. . . . Then out of the little joy and much of pain that I have brought, there will remain but a memory. In tune that may be softened by pity and mellowed into forgetfulness. . . . Yes, [125] BACK TO ARCADY you will forget. . . . But I I, who have not been wronged, but have been given so much to remember so much to wor ship will go out into the nameless world and offer my happiness as an obla tion for an outraged love. . . . You never said whether you would become my wife, or that you d ever see me again. You promised nothing. But whatever the end may be I want you to know that if my name possesses aught of cleanness, or my heart of kindliness, or my soul of gentle ness, that you, dear friend, are the sweet cause of it all. "Thank you, thank God, I bow my head. I am happy in that I have learned how to wait to wait for that which is greater than life and as sweet as the mercy of God. To wait for your love. "I am always thy "Louis." * * * * * * [126] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS When next the light of my lady s eyes made gladsome the heart of this lad he was hiding from the curious eyes of the world, down among the roses at the cottage in the field. IV To-night I learned from my lady s lips the story of her quarrelling with Louis. "I owe it to you," she said, "to tell you all - all that I may." "All that you may," I answered, "for what is not yours to give, I would not have." When I left them, after the telling of his story concerning Her Majesty the Queen, they sat talking until the dawn had crimson-patched the eastern sky. At first, these two who knew a deal more, one of the other, than I had ever dreamed in my wildest imagining, parried lightly [127] BACK TO ARCADY like swordsmen at play. But the white light of the springtime moon, with the delectable odour of the trees a-blossoming, is not given to causing the young heart o j love to trifle for long. Thus it was, forgetful of the past and oblivious of the future, only bound by the soft odours of the night, that my lady and Louis thought and said things that we, too, have whis pered many s the time by the dial in the green old garden. . . . Marcia was like unto one glorified. There was the radiant bliss of a new-found trust in the beauty of her eyes ; the full lips bespoke much of passion and a bit of fear; while every movement told of the abandon of a love that finds its most wonder-waking happi ness in the joy of being loved. . . . Ah, my Drucilla, how very close betimes do the lips of passion draw one to another never, never, after all, to know the sweetness of Love. . . . [128] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS Thus it was that Marcia sighed, moved uneasily, like one not knowing well the venture, and said : "And now, my lad o the violin, you will go back to your work, forgetting the song of Margot o the Crimson Lips, and become a famous man?" "My lady," he answered, "in fleeing from sorrow I ran a-deep into happiness. In attempting to get away from you I found you. Does it not look as if God had been more than kind? . . . Besides, of a surety there is Margot, the mother o me, whom I must not forget. You know, dear Lady o Roses, what will allow me to once more play the violin s song that gave me my mother in the garden in Picardy long time ago. Will you give it me now? " "When you have proven yourself to be a man worthy of life and of love," she whispered. "Marcia," he said, as she arose and [129] BACK TO ARCADY stood before him, "I see no reason why I should return to the environment that once came near wrecking my life by causing me to believe I might live without your love. . . . Why should I return to that which came near unto robbing me of my birthright? ... If you would only trust me now I am content to remain forever in the old rose-garden with love. I have enough and more for each of us. I want to make you my wife to live here in our cottage in the field. ... I have here learned what I believed to be true there in Paris a little while ago - that love " "Ah, that is just it," she interrupted. " You have conquered here and you must return. There is nothing here other than love, except the roses, and they are its friends. There, in the garish light of fevered pleasures, love, remaining loyal, would of a surety prove its endurance. [130] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS Arcady is a-bloom with roses for a love that has proven true in the market-place. When you have stood the test there then you may come back to Arcady I ll be in the rose-garden by the dial." "Then," she continued, "a man to be worthy of life must do things. He must, of all else, never neglect a gift that is God-given. These talents that are not in the reach of every man, but belong only to the chosen few, are the gift of God. . . . You have told me why you gave up and came here. I admire your courage. . . . But can I content myself with a husband who is an idler? I know that you are strong, but what do I know of your mettle when put to temptation? I will love my husband for his gentleness and tenderness ; but I also want to worship his strength of character and the tried purity that purges the dross and makes me sure I am giving my love to a Man. . . . You have con- [131] BACK TO ARCADY quered here, now you must return. You have been victorious, but you do not know yourself until you have triumphed there in the very face of the enemy. You are the victor here; win the battle there where a man must needs show valour!" "But I am tired of it all," he said, "and I had thought to live gently and peacefully here in my cottage in the field, never going back to the ceaseless turmoil of the world of people. . . . Listen, child," he said good-humouredly ; " out there among men much that you see is futile and not worth the price. There is little else than hollow mockery, disappointment in ambition, slavery, prostitution, blasphemy, and hy pocrisy. . . . Here in our green old gar den, and under our apple trees, there is peace and understanding. Our hearts beat true and our souls are genuine. This is where the garden of our hearts may be kept free from the poisonous [132] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS weeds, and, please God, why must we expose our roses to the worms just for the experiment of seeing whether or no the blossoms will be eaten away. . . . You, my lady, for the sake of the ap plause, ask me to fight a battle which, the victory mine, would be but empty. It is asking me, as a gallant of old, to pick your glove from where it was dropped in the arena filled with lions. . . . No," he said with hesitance, "I do not see that it is necessary. ... I am so sure of myself here. Besides, with you as my wife " It was then that he ceased to speak, for my lady drew herself to her full height; tilted her head in a fine scorn and, with a deal of pride and hurt dignity, said: "Good-night, sir. ... I do not pre sume to understand how a man possessing so much of greatness can be so contempt ibly little. I I, who loved you, wanted [133] BACK TO ARCADY to help you to be worthy of life. Now, because of a silly superstition a child s oath that you will not again play your beloved violin until you have won me, you prostitute the gift of God and bar ter your manhood. . . . Good-night. . . . The spirit of the violin is indeed dead. ... It is unnecessary that you accom pany me to my home. I will go alone. ... A man who will not face a once- conquered temptation is of a surety a coward!" Louis sprang to his feet as if someone had slapped him in the face. He turned to her and for a moment stared angrily into the haughty eyes before. Then, dropping his head, and bowing, he said: "Forgive me, my lady. ... I was wrong. ... I may be unworthy to walk beside you, Marcia, but it is quite neces sary that I see you safely to the old mansion. ... I will follow you." [i34] MY LADY AND LOVINGKINDNESS Thus they walked across the field now gray in the mist of the approaching dawn. Silently they passed down the path, over the hedge, and she up the steps and into the hall with never so much as a look behind. He watched below until the door was closed, then trudged back across the field, his head bowed and his features distorted with pain. Reaching the cot tage he sat upon the steps, burying his face in his hands. It was that morning I saw Louis leave by the early coach while My Lady o Roses sent him a silent good-by from behind the blossoming hedge. BACK TO ARCADY BACK TO ARCADY HINK of my surprise last night when Louis came down to the hedge, now one great mass of blossoming roses, and called to me. When I came out he was standing with a dozen or more of the largest jacque minots in his arms, and his eyes search ing for others that might please his fancy. "You are terribly destructive, Louis," I said, with mock ill-humour. [139] BACK TO ARCADY "I ll leave it to you, my old gentleman of the mansion, if I mayn t cut every rose on the hedge if it pleases me. Come, I m asking a favour no questions, if you please -- and I m wondering if you ll do it?" "Anything," I replied, "except to foster quarrels between very thoughtless chil dren." "Oh, you ve heard then?" I nodded my head wisely. "It s only as peacemaker," he said. 1 With all of the heart o me," I an swered. " Well, you see, I m in my own country here this side the hedge. I ve positive orders to keep off the enemy s grounds. I hope I m not presuming in thinking that you are willing to call the roses neutral?" "For this occasion, at least," I smiled. "I was sure you would," he answered. [ 140] BACK TO ARCADY "Now I ve been cityward these few days doing business things and incidentally purchasing a costume for the ball that s to be one evening hence. After that is over I m thinking I shall leave immediately. But it is this I would like you to do : Bear Marcia these roses, that are red like her mouth, and ask her for me if her Lad o the Violin is still expected to dance the minuet on the morrow evening? Then will you come to me?" he said. Quite unknown to either of us Marcia had gone into the village a-visiting, so it was most an hour later when I returned to the hedge to find Louis had left. I walked up the path toward the cottage. As I approached, the delicate perfume of blossoming honey-suckle reached me and I saw that the entire front of his home was a mass of vines and bloom. The carpet of grass made it quite possible to reach the porch without making the [141] BACK TO ARCADY slightest noise whereby my presence might become known. As I hesitated a moment, looking for the entrance in the thickly run vines, I was startled by hearing the soft tones of a violin stealing from without the very room that always had been closed even to those who loved him best. The music was scarcely audible, yet clear and sweet and perfect. Ah, my Drucilla, it seemed as if the very spirit of your love called to me through the violin-song that came a-stirring the heart o me with tenderness and the longing for old love- moments most forgot. It seemed to cry a name in sweet helplessness and in the agony of hope long deferred. Then it became soft and luxuriously coaxing as if appealing to every mood, every passion that might dwell within the heart of a mistress. ... In a moment I understood. This was the music which drew the Dream-maker over the wall into a garden [142] BACK TO ARCADY that he might kiss the mouth of Margot o the Crimson Lips, and the name it now cried was, "Marcia." Just as silently I stole back as far as the hedge. Then, as bravely as an old man may, I walked toward the cottage for a second tune whistling a bit boister ously. Louis met me at the porch and, to my astonishment, led me directly to the room in the wing which had never before been opened to me. When I entered Louis was greatly pleased at the surprise which swept over my face. The room was elegantly and tastefully furnished for the use of a woman. From the large mirrors to the fairy-like curtains of the bed, the pictures on the wall, the articles of toilet upon the bureau, and the delicate perfume of the roses that Louis had placed in a huge vase on top of a mahogany writing desk, all spoke and sung and smelled of woman. A woman [143] BACK TO ARCADY of breeding, refinement, and used to a deal of luxuries. "When did you do this?" I asked. "When the cottage was built," he answered. " How have you kept it so ? " I ex claimed in surprise. He led me to the window which looked out upon the field, the trees and my blossoming hedge of roses. "You know much of the story," he said. When I built this cottage in the field I prepared this little room for the truest woman God ever gave the world. The greatest pleasure of my life has been the few moments each day I have come here to keep it ready. It has stood as a symbol of my heart and I have sacredly kept it waiting for the coming of Her Majesty the Queen. ... As it is to-day it will ever remain as a shrine forsaken, awaiting the re-lighting of the flame. In BACK TO ARCADY it is my life s love, dear friend, and death will find it here ever hoping for the coming of that which I have told her is dearer than life and as sweet as the mercy of God the coming of her love." "And the violin?" I asked, pointing toward the instrument lying in its case on the floor. "Ah, I see she has told you that, too. Well, it would not have been at all to Miladi s liking, when she said me no, had I told her that I could not believe her speaking from her heart. So, in keeping with the legend of Margot, I refused to play to her, but never in my heart of hearts have I ceased to hope that on a day she would come to me. So all of the tune, in secret here, have I played the call of the Crimson Lips." "Thank God," I whispered. "The message?" he asked eagerly upon hearing my exclamation. [i45l BACK TO ARCADY "My Lady o Roses said Come, " I answered. He bowed his head within his hands and shook with sobs like unto a child. n This morning is of a surety fraught with the perfume of olden tunes and day dreams of roses yet to unfold in the garden of my memory. Last night, only last night, Drucilla, the violins were a-tune for my lady s ball. The guests came all attired in the habit of a half-century ago - the costumes of their Golden Age. Not since my youth when our hearts beat young, Oh my Drucilla have I seen in the ballroom so vast an array of beauty. There was a bit of lilac in the air mingled with the odour of delicate laces and the gowns of women. In the glow [146] BACK TO ARC AD Y of the half-lights the assembly seemed to be aflame with white, round arms and shoulders; full, red kissing-lips, that told of strong desires, pouted in sweet petu lance; and dark impassioned eyes, like shimmering jewels, flashed from beneath fair brows. Then there were men, refined and thoughtful, bending to the wish of the lips of women, while others leered at eyes that dared not look them back. Here and there the beauty of a woman s face, more rare than those surrounding her, bloomed softly like unto a new-blown rose. Of a surety Drucilla, there was equally the tragedy in the night of music as there was joy. A sort of sweet melan choly tragedy is our Doctor Henri Blossom and his Barbara. They sat near me talking in undertones, undisturbed. Our Lady o Roses sat yonder talking to young Henri Blossom and I could see the delectable curves of cheeks aglow and [147] BACK TO ARCADY the soft movement of her body. She was wonderfully beautiful and of the type that seems to draw men against their wills. So seductively beautiful was my lady of the velvet gown, that the warm fragrance of her breath seemed to come to me like unto the stealing tones of the violins. Perhaps an hour later I stood just without the open casement and watched a picture, it seemed, that stepped from without my youth and stood in memory before me. Again a tall and manly youth, clad completely in white satin, leading the minuet with a fair and lovely girl whose eyes, glancing furtively from beneath her powdered hah-, danced quite as much as her dainty toes. The rosy tips of the fingers of her right hand were held tightly in the gentleman s, while with the other she coquettishly lifted her silken skirts just enough to disclose at each step a bit of an alluring ankle. [148] BACK TO ARCADY The youth s kindly face was flushed with the wonder of her beauty as he courteously watched each graceful move ment of her supple little body. Once she thought his fingers tightened about her own (0 memories that burn!), but when she glanced shyly toward his sober face no signs of mischief lingered there. They had danced to the fartherest end of the ballroom, when she ventured: "Seems I heard somewhere, Master Louis, that you were again to leave Kentucky." "You know as well as I," he replied, " that I am going East to-morrow on the coach that leaves at noon." "I am so sorry," she said, arching her pretty eyebrows. "If you were really regretting it," he replied earnestly, "you would not let me go." "Would not let you go?" BACK TO ARCADY "Yes." "Oh, please to stay. Won t you?" she pleaded petulantly. He turned his face eagerly and looked into her eyes. "Do you mean it?" he whispered. "Why would you have me stay?" "You ll make one more at my next ball," she laughed gayly, giving her head a petulant toss. To this Louis made no reply. The lady gazed at him with laughing, questioning eyes. Perhaps it was the look upon his face perhaps the beauty of the night time. Her voice softened. "You are dreaming, lad?" she ventured. "I was remembering, I think," was the reply. "About what, Louis?" "A little lady I knew long years ago." "Tell me about her." "I remember one day the two of us [150] BACK TO ARCADY were little fellows then coming home from school with her. I had a big red apple and she a bunch of hyacinths, I believe. When we reached her gate we stood for a moment; then I suddenly thrust the apple into her hands and she the flowers into mine, and . . . and . . . and . . ." "Oh, and ..." "And she kissed me and ran as fast as her chubby little legs could carry her, toward the house." "I didn t. I just ..." "Who said anything about what you did? . . . And she left me as happy, standing there, as a wood-thrush in Maytime. "There was another time," continued Louis, "when she used to climb the apple tree with me and we rode swinging branches for horses. I remember how the pink and white blossoms used to fall [151] BACK TO ARC AD Y about her, lodging in her hair and on her cheeks, though you couldn t see the flowers lying there, both being the same colour. Once she begged me to climb out on her branch so it would swing better; and when I was about half-way out it began to crack and the little girl to scream, so I dropped that she might not fall." "And how I did wish I had let go instead!" whispered my lady. He looked at her with an expression of utter surprise upon his face, and, as if he had failed to understand her, continued : "When the doctor had set my broken arm and stitched the cut in my face - you might see the scar if you looked - she used to come and sit by me hour after hour and tell me how sorry she was. And one time, when mother wasn t look ing, she kissed the wound, and it never hurt me after that. Since then I have [152] BACK TO ARCADY always been glad so glad, I fell that day." Then neither spoke a word for some time, and the music, each knew, was almost over. The girl had become serious and the man seemed to be doing the dally ing ... As they passed a shaded open door the moonlight filtered through the trees, rested a moment upon my lady s outstretched, pitying hand, and played in the tangles of her hair. From the trees came the opulent smell of blossoms to mingle with the odour of roses. ... At length she murmured: "It was cruel of you to bring back to me those old tunes." "Well," he replied, much more gently, " I shall tell you only one other, and that is far more tender than all that has gone before. That is, if you will permit me?" "You may," she answered. "It isn t long," he said. "Once upon [i53] BACK TO ARCADY a time, long after, when we were older, just when she had grown into a wonder fully good and beautiful woman, we rested on a rock-hewn seat in a green old garden of roses, and I told her the stories of our lives as I have to-night. . . . Then I told her I ... I whispered something else to her . . . something I have not told to night." Here he hesitated a moment and, dole fully shaking his head, continued: "And now, as then, she will not have mercy - "And you," interrupted the girl, "swore you would leave for ever." "She told me she did not care," he re plied, as they stopped by the open door and the music ceased. Then he led her out upon the wide old porch under the vines where the moon light filtered through, and standing very near to my lady, lifted her hand very ten derly and pressed each finger to his lips. [i54] BACK TO ARCADY "There is but one other hand in all this world," he whispered, "I love so dearly as this." Her face grew timid as she lifted it appealingly, like unto a flower, toward him. "And whose, Louis, is it?" she asked. "The other little hand of the girl," was the answer. "It isn t even hers now," came from My Lady o Roses, as she shyly thrust the other hand into his own. Ill Long after the last guest had departed Louis and My Lady o Roses sat and dreamed these dreams of young lovers. You remember how the light of the moon caresses the languishing night and plays seductive shadows here and there beneath the trees ; and the perfume how the [155] BACK TO ARCADY heavy odour of the roses steals through the air, voluptuous and full of passion, awakening, somehow, memories of old loves; and then, this, too, you remember, how wonderful are the kisses of lips long denied. Also there are the vows those altars erected to love whose pyres we light while the flame waxes fierce for fear that some day it may burn low. . . . And the shrines, let me not forget the shrines - the little candles we burn in memory of the saint days of love. Then, after a while, there came to me from without the night, like unto the perfume of roses, the soft, warm tones of a lover s violin bearing the message with which, years and years ago in a garden in Picardy, Margot o the Crimson Lips gave the heart of her to the Dream- maker. Each had given up the contention that doth make of love a slave. Ah, my BACK TO ARCADY Drucilla, at the end of life I have discov ered that there is but one Love worthy of the name, and fortunate are they who experience it. Asking nothing, it gives all. Its joys are born of service and its birthright is immortality. All the world s a-seeking it, few there be that find it, for it lies at the end of the Primrose Path in the Garden of Arcady. UC SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY A 000 702 946 5