MFVTOMMY -DOVE 
 TTO-OTHEfV STORIES 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE 
 
 AND OTHER STORIES 
 
 BY 
 
 MARGARET DELAND 
 
 AUTHOR OF "JOHN WARD, PREACHER," " SIDNEY " 
 " THE STORY OF A CHILD," ETC. 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 
 HOUGHTON, MTFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 ($be fiifcerside $re00, CambnD0e 
 
 1894 
 
Copyriffht,.189S, 
 BY MARGARET DKLAXD. 
 
 All riqhts rtstrvtd. 
 
 The Rirfrsidf Press. Cnmbriihjf. Miss., l~. S. A. 
 Electrotyped aud fluted by H. O. Houghton Jt Co. 
 
TO 
 LORIN DELAND, 
 
 THEIR FIRST READER AND CRITIC, 
 THESE STORIES 
 
 ARE 
 DEDICATED. 
 
 APRIL It, 1893. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MR. TOMMY DOVE 1 
 
 THE FACE ON THE WALL 49 
 
 ELIZABETH 116 
 
 AT WHOSE DOOR ? 160 
 
 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT . 201 
 
ME. TOMMY DOYE. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE apothecary shop in Old Chester stood a 
 little back from the street. There was a garden 
 in front of it, but the fence which inclosed it 
 was broken in places, so that an envious hand, 
 had any such been known in Old Chester, could 
 easily have broken off a cluster of cinnamon 
 roses, or grasped a stately stem of tall white 
 lilies. 
 
 The shop itself was but the square front room 
 of Mr. Tommy Dove s old stone house. One 
 of the windows had been cut down to make a 
 door, so that customers might not wear out the 
 white-and-gray oil-cloth in his mother s entry; 
 and the two front doors, side by side, were per 
 haps more of a distinguishing feature than the 
 small pestle and mortar, which, suspended by 
 wires from an upper window, had long ago given 
 to the wind and rain whatever gilding they pos 
 sessed. 
 
 It was since Mrs. Dove s death that the fence 
 
MX. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 fallen ouo of repair, and wayfarers might 
 be tempted by the bloom and richness of the 
 garden ; and since her death, too, the real front 
 door had not been opened, and gradually the 
 gray house had lost its individuality as a home 
 to become merely the apothecary shop. 
 
 Yet, in spite of the closed shutters of the up 
 per rooms and the silent entries, Tommy Dove 
 still tried to feel that he had a home. He was 
 glad to close the shop at night, first arranging 
 the cord of the jangling bell, that he might be 
 summoned if he were needed, and then going 
 into the kitchen, to eat, all alone, the somewhat 
 uncomfortable supper which had been prepared 
 for him by the woman who took charge of the 
 house. He would open a book beside his plate, 
 and eat, and read, and dream, until Mrs. Mc 
 Donald s heavy step warned him that she was 
 impatient to put the kitchen to rights for the 
 night. After she had gone, and everything was 
 in stiff and uncomfortable order, Tommy would 
 rub his hands together, and listen to the kettle 
 singing on the fire, and think how cozy he was, 
 and how independent. But these moments of 
 satisfaction held always a strange consciousness 
 of disappointment in himself, for he was not 
 mourning for his mother ! Anybody who knew 
 anything about the late Mrs. Dove would have 
 said "No wonder!" but her son, who knew 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 3 
 
 more than any one else, felt only his own loss in 
 being unable to grieve for her. He did not 
 understand the pang of regret for an unf elt sor 
 row, the human claim for the human experience ; 
 he only knew vaguely that he was missing some 
 richness in his life, and there was always the 
 effort to drive his thoughts back to his own lone 
 liness. 
 
 "Ah, it s hard on a man to have to make his 
 own tea and look after his household affairs," 
 he would remind himself, ashamed and remorse 
 ful because of his content. 
 
 It pleased the apothecary to say "household 
 affairs," and it pleased him yet more to meditate 
 upon them in silence, with no shrill interrup 
 tions or commands. After long repression and 
 distrust, it was with a kind of wondering joy 
 that this obedient son found the keys of the 
 china-closet and the linen-press in his posses 
 sion. True, their contents had no especial 
 value, "An ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine 
 own." He counted the sheets and pillow-cases, 
 and laid fresh sprigs of lavender among them 
 with his own hands, and he cautioned Mrs. 
 McDonald to be careful in washing the old blue 
 cups and saucers. He wished that she would 
 not always reply, "Yes, yes, Mr. Tommy. 
 Don t fret, dear." She meant it kindly, he 
 was sure, but it hurt his new-born dignity a 
 little. 
 
4 Ml?. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 "If mother had only called me Thomas in 
 stead of Tommy, " he thought, "people would 
 have treated me with more respect." 
 
 But, if a man s own family snub him, he need 
 not hope for anything more reverent than kind 
 ness from his immediate world. In a vague way 
 Mr. Tommy realized this, and accepted the 
 friendly nickname without a protest. 
 
 Part of the joy of being free, of being able to 
 do as he liked, expressed itself in the apothe 
 cary s garden. While his mother was alive he 
 had been obliged to rise early and work hard, 
 and prune and train his plants according to 
 Mrs. Dove s ideas. But now he no longer 
 started at the whir of his alarm clock at four in 
 the morning, dearly as he loved his garden, and 
 much as he missed those hours of the misty 
 dawn among his flowers : the tropaeolums should 
 trail halfway across the gravel path, if they 
 wanted to; and the sweet peas might clamber 
 up into the white rosebush, if it pleased them ; 
 Tommy would not train them. He sometimes 
 thought he knew how they had felt in those 
 days of precise order. The broken fence did 
 trouble him a little, but that it should not be 
 mended was his unconscious protest at the past. 
 Yet he did bestir himself in this matter a 
 week before the Temples came back to Old 
 Chester. He was unwilling that Mr. Temple 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 5 
 
 should notice any disorder about the shop, or 
 that little Dick Temple should find the garden 
 such a tangled growth that he could not see the 
 seeds of the balloon -vine which he used to love 
 to crack against his rosy cheek; nor could he 
 bear to have Miss Jane think that he neglected 
 his plants. So it was really a relief to him, 
 when he sat down at his tea-table one June 
 evening, to know that the fence was mended, 
 and not a single weed was hidden among the 
 flowers. He seated himself by the open kitchen 
 window, and, rocking slowly back and forth, 
 stirred his tea with a small, thin spoon. The 
 morning-glory leaves outside made a frame for 
 the distant hills, and for the yellow sunset with 
 its filmy bars of gray cloud. Tommy was think 
 ing how long it was since the great house at the 
 other end of the village had been opened. Yes, 
 it was surely eight years since the Temples had 
 been in Old Chester. 
 
 He tried to adjust his thought of Dick. 
 "Why, he must be quite a boy," he said. "And 
 there was a baby girl, too. I suppose she has 
 grown a great deal." He felt a kindly, sim 
 ple interest in all the family ; and then he re 
 flected that the Temples would sympathize with 
 him because of his mother s death. That they 
 knew all about it the apothecary did not doubt. 
 Was it not the most important event of his life? 
 
6 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 He wondered if Miss Jane had changed much; 
 he even sighed a little as he thought of her. 
 Miss Jane Temple, living in her brother s rich, 
 comfortable house, with strong, bright interests 
 all around her, seemed to this silent and some 
 what timid man like a being from another world. 
 Henry Temple s light-hearted indifference to 
 everything outside of his own life had always 
 awed the apothecary; but Miss Jane, in spite 
 of her different world, was not like her brother, 
 she was kind, Tommy Dove thought, and 
 gentle ; so that when he saw her alone, on those 
 rare days when she came to the shop, he was not 
 at all afraid of her. 
 
 u Yes," he said to himself, putting his cup 
 and saucer down on the window-sill, "I should 
 n t wonder a bit if she came in to tell me she 
 sympathized with me, she s so kind." 
 
 And he was right in thinking Jane Temple 
 would condole with him. She heard of Mrs. 
 Dove s death soon after her return, and, know 
 ing less of the character of the deceased than 
 most of Old Chester, she came very soon to the 
 apothecary shop to say, with tears in her eyes, 
 that she had heard of Mr. Tommy s loss, and 
 she was so sorry. She was thinking of her own 
 mother as she spoke. "It is very sad for you, 
 Mr. Tommy," she said; "I I know how sad 
 it is." 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 1 
 
 She bad walked up the smooth gravel path 
 with little Effie Temple hanging upon her hand, 
 and she stood now at the low stone step. Mr. 
 Tommy, leaning on his half -door and looking 
 absently at the bloom and tangle of his garden, 
 had straightened up as he saw her coming, and 
 hurried out to take the hand she extended, and 
 to stumble through some sort of greeting. 
 
 "And who is this little girl?" he inquired, 
 buttoning his coat up to his chin with nervous 
 fingers. The child s calm stare disconcerted 
 him even more than Miss Jane s presence. 
 
 "This is my niece Effie," Miss Jane an 
 swered, smiling, for the little girl did not speak. 
 "She was a baby when we left Old Chester." 
 
 "Oh, yes, "replied Mr. Tommy, "oh, dear 
 me, yes, indeed. I remember there was a baby. 
 Won t you step in, Miss Jane? and perhaps 
 the little girl will let me make some hollyhock 
 ladies to amuse her?" 
 
 Effie frowned, but looked interested. "What 
 are hollyhock ladies?" she demanded. 
 
 Her aunt did not go into the shop, though Mr. 
 Tommy held the half -door hospitably open. 
 
 "I will just wait here," she said; and so 
 while Mr. Tommy went over to the row of holly 
 hocks, and stood bareheaded in the sunshine, 
 filling his hat with the silky blossoms, white 
 and buff, rose -color and deep wine -red, she sat 
 
8 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 resting on the warm, broad step. She watched 
 the row of pigeons sunning their white breasts 
 on the ridgepole of the barn, and listened to 
 their long, rippling coo. A shadow from the 
 honeysuckle about the door blew back and forth 
 across the path, and up from the garden came 
 the scent of sweet alyssum and mignonette. 
 
 When Mr. Tommy came back, Effie, with 
 her hands behind her, and grave, unresponsive 
 face, watched him strip off the calyx and bend 
 back the petals, leaving a puffy yellow ball with 
 nodding plumes upon a slender neck. The 
 apothecary s fingers seemed all thumbs under 
 the calmly critical gaze of the child, but he 
 managed to tie a blade of grass around the 
 middle of the folded petals. 
 
 "That is a sash, he explained nervously. 
 
 "I don t think," Effie observed slowly, "that 
 anybody would know they were intended for 
 ladies." 
 
 "Oh, Effie, dear!" said Miss Jane plead 
 ingly. 
 
 But Tommy hastened to agree with the child. 
 "Oh, no," he said. "Oh, dear me, of course 
 not. They don t look at all like ladies. But 
 when I was a little boy I used to think they 
 did, and I made whole families of them when 
 the hollyhocks were in blossom; they were my 
 dolls, you know." 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 "I didn t know boys played with dolls," 
 Effie answered. 
 
 Miss Jane looked distressed and apologetic ; 
 and it was perhaps because she feared Mr. 
 Tommy s feelings had been hurt that she went 
 through the shop into the small sitting-room be 
 yond, and listened while he told her of his mo 
 ther s sickness and death. But Effie s presence 
 embarrassed him so much that, with a nervous 
 desire to propitiate her, he opened the door of a 
 corner-closet and took out a cup and saucer of 
 thin, fine china. There were little faded lavender 
 flowers scattered over it, and the gilt upon the 
 handle was somewhat worn, but it was delicate 
 and pretty, and Tommy, standing in a streak 
 of sunshine, with one lean hand upon the door of 
 the closet, looked with wistful blue eyes at Effie. 
 
 "Perhaps," he said, "the little girl will take 
 this little gift. I should be pleased if she would 
 accept it." 
 
 "Oh, it is so pretty, Mr. Tommy," said Miss 
 Jane. It would not be kind to decline it, she 
 thought, since Effie had been so naughty. "Say 
 thank you, Effie," she instructed her niece, 
 who was holding the cup in silence; "Indeed, 
 you are too good, Mr. Tommy; it s very pret 
 ty!" she ended, with nervous emphasis. And, 
 in her mild way, as they walked home, she 
 reproved the child because she had not seemed 
 pleased. 
 
10 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 But Effie was never known to hesitate for an 
 excuse. 
 
 "Well, but, aunty," she explained, "why 
 should that man give me a cup and saucer? 
 Haven t we hundreds of cups and saucers? 
 And he kept calling me little girl, and his 
 ridiculous old hollyhock ladies ! " 
 
 II. 
 
 This little visit of Miss Jane s gave Tommy 
 Dove much to reflect upon. 
 
 How gentle she was, how low her voice, how 
 condescending her manner ! Mr. Tommy knew 
 no better than to call Miss Jane s timidity con 
 descension, but that did not make him less 
 happy. There was no one in Old Chester in the 
 least like her, he thought; and then he fell to 
 meditating upon his loneliness. He wondered 
 how life would have seemed if his mother had 
 not hated Mary Ellen Boyce, and the one dawn 
 of love in all his cramped years had been allowed 
 to brighten into day. Yet, curiously enough, 
 he found himself regretting his mother s stern 
 ness less than he had ever done before. 
 
 He thought of his talk with Miss Jane so often 
 that week that, without quite knowing why, he 
 found himself, at the close of the Wednesday 
 evening lecture, waiting outside the church door. 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 11 
 
 Miss Jane, stopping to speak to old friends, was 
 so long in coming out that when she reached the 
 steps most of the congregation had dispersed ; 
 so Tommy, quite naturally, began to walk beside 
 her as he said, "Good-evening," and hoped that 
 she "found herself very well." 
 
 Miss Jane answered with a gentle cordiality 
 which the apothecary thought beautiful, but she 
 stopped, and glanced back at the church, and 
 then looked anxiously up the moonlit road, which 
 wound like a white ribbon back among the hills. 
 "I asked Dick to meet me," she explained, "but 
 very likely he has forgotten it. He is such a 
 good boy, Dick is, but sometimes he forgets." 
 Miss Jane s love was not of the fibre which de 
 mands the best in its beloved. 
 
 "If," said Mr. Tommy eagerly, "if you 
 will allow me to walk along with you, ma am " 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed, Mr. Tommy," she answered, 
 quite fluttered and hesitating. " The lane is as 
 quiet as can be, and the moon has made it as 
 light as day." 
 
 But the apothecary urged her again with re 
 spectful anxiety. "You ought not to be alone, 
 if you 11 allow me to say so, Miss Jane." And 
 so he went to the very door of Henry Temple s 
 house. Miss Jane had so many questions to ask 
 about Old Chester, and he had so much to tell 
 her, that the walk was a pleasant one to them 
 
12 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 both; and, with a friendly impulse, as she said 
 good-night and thanked him for his kindness, 
 she asked him if he would not come in. 
 
 It was with a strange sensation that, standing 
 in the shadows at the foot of the white steps, 
 Tommy Dove declined what he had never 
 dreamed would be offered to him. But he did 
 decline it, and then went back to his shop, and, 
 sitting down behind the counter, leaned his head 
 on his hands and thought it all over. He hoped 
 that he had expressed himself well in talking 
 to Miss Jane; " elegantly " was the word in 
 Tommy s mind. He felt sure that his conver 
 sation about his books had been genteel, but 
 he doubted a little if it had not been vulgar to 
 speak of such things as the snails and rose -bugs 
 in his garden. This troubled him, and he was 
 not quite happy when he lighted his candle and 
 went upstairs to his bedroom under the eaves. 
 
 Miss Jane had enjoyed the walk home, but 
 she was a little relieved that Mr. Tommy had 
 not accepted her invitation. "There are no 
 lights in the parlor," she said to herself, "and 
 I couldn t have taken him into the library." 
 
 When she opened the library door, her sweet 
 face, no longer young, glowing a little from the 
 cool air, and her eyes dazzled by the light, 
 Henry Temple glanced up at her over his glasses 
 long enough to say, "Well, Janey?" and then 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 13 
 
 settled back into his newspaper; but Dick 
 sprang up from his seat beside his mother s 
 sofa with a conscience-stricken look. 
 
 "Oh, aunty," he exclaimed, "what a lout I 
 am ! I forgot all about your prayer-meeting !" 
 
 "Why, Richard! " said his mother in dismay, 
 and Mr. Temple put down his paper to say, 
 "Were you to go for your aunt? I m ashamed 
 of you, sir! " 
 
 "Oh, it is no matter, dear brother," protested 
 Miss Jane, her face shining with affection. 
 "Never mind, Dick. As though one couldn t 
 come home alone in Old Chester ! though, 
 really, I did n t come home alone. Mr. Dove 
 walked back with me." 
 
 "Dove?" said Henry Temple. "Oh, Mr. 
 Tommy? Yes. Well, that was very nice in 
 the little man. Did n t his mother die last 
 winter ? Dick, you cub, have you apologized to 
 your aunt? Janey, while I think of it, just see 
 that my gun-case is mended, will you? The 
 baize is torn at one end." 
 
 "And, aunty," Dick said penitently, "if 
 you 11 forgive me this time, I 11 go with you, 
 as well as for you, next week. It s this beastly 
 translation; just look at that stuff! Findi- 
 tur nodus cordis 
 
 Miss Jane took off her bonnet, and leaned 
 over Dick s shoulder. Ever since the days in 
 
14 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 which she taught him his A B C s, she had been 
 impressed by her nephew s learning; but she 
 did not comment upon it now. 
 
 "Yes, she died in January," she said slowly. 
 "He must be very lonely." 
 
 No one answered her; each member of the 
 family had his or her occupations and interests, 
 and Miss Jane s pity was as unnoticed as the 
 fall of a rose-leaf outside in the tranquil night. 
 
 The library was such a pleasant room, though 
 it was dim with cigar smoke that evening, that 
 it was easy to shut out other people s affairs 
 and be simply comfortable. The window on 
 the south side had a broad, leather-cushioned 
 seat, where Erne Temple was curled up reading 
 by the light of a hanging lamp. The windows 
 were open, and the soft June air and the climb 
 ing roses came in together from the moonlit 
 night. The walls were lined with books, and in 
 the corners were racks for fishing-rods; a pair 
 of spurs had been thrown down upon a table 
 littered with papers and letters and bits of 
 unfinished fancy-work. A liver-colored pointer 
 had fallen asleep beside Mrs. Temple s sofa, 
 her delicate hand resting lovingly on his sleek 
 head, and a collie was stretched at the feet of 
 the master of the house. 
 
 Miss Jane felt, vaguely, that this careless 
 comfort was the reason of the indifference to the 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 15 
 
 outside world. Mr. Tommy s sorrow could not 
 touch any one here, and for that reason, per 
 haps, she kept it in her own heart; and, possj- 
 bly because the interests of her life were not 
 her own but other people s, Miss Jane s heart 
 had room for Mr. Tommy s griefs. 
 
 "Really," said Mrs. Temple that night to 
 her husband, after she had eaten the bowl of 
 delicate gruel her sister-in-law had brought her, 
 "really, Janey is a great help; you have no 
 idea how much, in a small way, she relieves me." 
 
 "I ve not a doubt of it," responded Henry 
 Temple, pausing with his bootjack in one plump 
 white hand. "Janey hasn t any mind, particu 
 larly, but she is a very good sort of person to 
 depend upon. It s lucky she never married." 
 
 "Well," said Mrs. Temple doubtfully, "it is 
 fortunate for us, Henry but perhaps don t 
 you think that for Janey it is not so pleasant?- 
 I am almost sorry for Janey. Not but what 
 she is contented, in your household, she could 
 not be anything else, but a woman is happier 
 to be married, my dear." 
 
 She smiled at him adoringly. Possibly her 
 sister-in-law s usefulness had contributed to 
 Euphemia Temple s view of the happiness of 
 matrimony ; it had certainly protected her ideal 
 of her husband, and kept her blind to certain 
 facts of temper and selfishness, which, if the 
 
16 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 housekeeping machinery had not run smoothly, 
 or his comfort had been interfered with, she 
 must have learned. "No unmarried woman 
 knows what happiness is ! " she declared. Her 
 husband laughed, Mr. Temple s laugh was so 
 frequent and so cordial that people said he was 
 the most good-natured fellow in the world. 
 
 ^"Nonsense," he said, " Jane s happy enough. 
 What could she want better? A good home, a 
 chance to travel sometimes, and I m sure we 
 are all fond of Janey. No, no, she s happy 
 enough. Besides, she might not have found a 
 good husband." 
 
 And Mrs. Temple assented, with a sigh of 
 thankfulness for her own blessings. 
 
 III. 
 
 Miss Jane thought very often of Mr. Tom 
 my s sorrow. She saw him once or twice in the 
 village after that walk home from prayer-meet 
 ing, and she met him again in the west pasture, 
 where she had gone to look for wild strawberries 
 for her sister-in-law, a task which could not be 
 entrusted to the dull eyes of servants, and 
 Dick was too busy, and Effie did not like the 
 July sun even as late as five o clock. 
 
 Miss Jane had stopped in the pasture to rest 
 upon a ledge of rock, which, breaking through 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 17 
 
 the hillside grass and ferns, was grasped by the 
 roots of a walnut-tree, wrinkled like fingers of 
 a sinewy hand. She liked to hear the rustle 
 of the wind in the sage -bush at her side, and 
 the shrill cry of the crickets. She took off her 
 hat and smoothed back a lock of her pale brown 
 hair; then she watched a wandering butterfly 
 light upon a swinging stalk of mullein, and open 
 and close his velvety wings. She was wonder 
 ing, her eyes fixed absently upon the butterfly, 
 if it would be very long before her brother 
 opened the old house again, or whether she could 
 not persuade her sister-in-law to persuade him 
 to come next summer, this country life was 
 very dear to Jane Temple, so she did not hear 
 Mr. Tommy s step, and his voice startled her 
 when he said timidly, "Good-evening, ma am." 
 But she was distinctly glad to see him. He 
 was part of Old Chester to Jane Temple. The 
 apothecary s arms were full of pennyroyal, and 
 as he talked he buried his face in it once or 
 twice, as though its fragrance delighted him, 
 though really it was only to hide his embar 
 rassed joy. 
 
 "I ve been picking pennyroyal," he said, as 
 if its aromatic perfume needed any explana 
 tion; "it grows very thickly on the Common." 
 Then, a little awkwardly, he pulled out half a 
 dozen sprays from his bunch, and offered them 
 to Miss Jane. "Some like it," he observed. 
 
18 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 "I do," she answered; and from that it was 
 easy enough to fall to talking of his garden, and 
 how dear Old Chester was to Miss Jane, and 
 how sorry she should be when November came, 
 and she must leave it "And it may be very 
 long before we come back again," she ended, 
 with a sigh. 
 
 They were both so interested that they had 
 not noticed how the shadows had lengthened, 
 and then faded into the gray, warm dusk; but 
 when they did, Miss Jane rose nervously. 
 
 "Dear me," she said, "how late it is ! I 
 must make haste." 
 
 Tommy stumbled along at her side over the 
 uneven ground, trying to see the path through 
 his great bunch of pennyroyal. "Miss Jane," 
 he said, a little breathless as he tried to keep 
 pace with her, "if if you 11 let me, I 11 bring 
 you a bunch of those gillyflowers I told you 
 about." 
 
 "Why, indeed, I shall be very glad to have 
 them," she answered. "You are so kind. But 
 I m afraid it will be a trouble, Mr. Dove." 
 
 These little talks with the apothecary had 
 lent him a new dignity in Miss Jane s eves, 
 and she no longer called him "Mr. Tommy." 
 
 "Why," he protested, "why, it will be the 
 greatest pleasure in the world, the greatest 
 pleasure in the world ! " 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 19 
 
 He walked to Henry Temple s gate with her, 
 and then stood peering between the iron bars at 
 her small figure hurrying along the driveway 
 under the overhanging trees. 
 
 Miss Jane was late, and she came breathlessly 
 into the dining-room, to find the family at tea. 
 
 "Well, Janey," said her brother, "we began 
 to think you were going to spend the night in 
 the fields ! " 
 
 "I am so sorry," she answered, with anxious 
 contrition. "I really didn t know how late it 
 was. Have you tried to make the tea, dear 
 sister? Do let me take your place. I m sure 
 you are tired, and I m so sorry ! " 
 
 "But what happened to you, Janey?" Mr. 
 Temple asked good-naturedly; he had finished 
 his curry, and could afford to be interested in 
 small matters. "I suppose you have brought 
 home a bushel of strawberries? " 
 
 "No, she hasn t ! " cried Effie shrilly, from 
 her perch on Dick s knee. "She hasn t been 
 picking strawberries all this time. I went out 
 to meet her, so I did, an I got to the pasture 
 bars, an then I did n t go any farther, cause 
 I saw aunty sitting under the big walnut with 
 Mr. Tommy Dove, an I don t like that Mr. 
 Tommy Dove." 
 
 "What?" exclaimed Henry Temple, his eyes 
 full of amusement. "Does the apothecary go 
 strawberrying, too?" 
 
20 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 "Aunty, I 11 get the strawberries for you, 
 next time ! " said Dick, with a laugh. 
 
 Miss Jane tried to make herself heard. "I 
 -I was just going to say, dear brother " she 
 
 began, her anxious face hot with blushes "I 
 
 met Mr. Dove ; he came across the pasture, and 
 I was resting and he " 
 
 "Yes, yes, we understand," said Mr. Temple, 
 pushing his chair back. "Euphemia, I think 
 Jane will prefer that Effie is kept at home in 
 the afternoons. Effie, confine yourself to large 
 facts, my child: say you went to meet your 
 aunt, but spare the details. Eh, Jane?" 
 
 His jolly laugh drowned her answer, and he 
 did not wait for her to repeat it; indeed, the 
 whole matter went out of his mind, nor did it 
 occur to him again until a week later, when 
 Mrs. Temple, with a droll look, told him that 
 Mr. Tommy had brought Miss Jane a bunch 
 of gillyflowers, and had stayed talking with her 
 upon the porch for nearly an hour. 
 
 "Well, now, see here," he said, as he flung 
 his head back, with a great laugh. "It is ab 
 surd, of course, but really Jane must be careful. 
 It is all very well to be kind and neighborly, 
 nobody believes in that sort of thing more than 
 I do; only it must not be turned into Love s 
 Offering, Euphemia! " He was even careful to 
 drop a good-natured sarcasm concerning Mr. 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 21 
 
 Tommy in Miss Jane s presence, and had a mo 
 ment of uncomfortable surprise at seeing his 
 sister s face flush a little. But, after all, Jane 
 was a woman and a Temple, and was but prop 
 erly kind-hearted; and then, beside, the little 
 man knew his place. 
 
 To take the small bunch of flowers to Miss 
 Jane had been a great pleasure to Mr. Tommy. 
 He thought of it so continuously that he was 
 strangely absent-minded when he mixed his 
 powders and potions, thereby causing, no little 
 anxiety to some nervous customers. He began 
 to say to himself that Miss Jane had received 
 his little nosegay with such kindness that he 
 wished he had something better to give her. 
 After meditating for several days upon this sub 
 ject, it occurred to him that there was a certain 
 blue chest in the garret which held women s 
 gowns and some small fineries of his mother s. 
 Yet it was not until he had once more walked 
 home from prayer-meeting with her that he made 
 up his mind to open it, and see if it contained 
 anything worthy of Henry Temple s sister. 
 
 The Dove house was full of the slumberous 
 silence of the August afternoon, when Tommy 
 climbed the dusty stairs to search the blue chest. 
 The garret under the roof was very hot, and 
 there was a scorched smell from the worm-eaten 
 rafters that mingled with the pungent fragrance 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 of herbs which were drying upon the floor. A 
 blue fly buzzed fitfully up and down one of the 
 small panes of glass in the window, and the hot 
 silence was accented by the tick of the death- 
 watch in the wall, or the muffled stir of bird life 
 under the eaves outside. Against the brick 
 chimney, which was rough with lines of mortar, 
 were spider s-webs, furry with the dust of years; 
 and in a tarnished brass warming-pan was a 
 family of mice, that started at Tommy s step, 
 the mother peering at him with bright, anxious 
 eyes, and then running across the floor to hide 
 beneath a loosened plank. 
 
 Tommy propped the window open with a 
 broken sandal -wood box, which held nothing 
 more valuable than some old yellow letters ; the 
 blue fly spread his wings and tumbled out into 
 the sunshine, and the fresh air came in, in a 
 warm, sweet gust. Then he lifted the lid of 
 the chest and looked in. There was a vague 
 regret for himself in Tommy s mind, that the 
 contents roused no sacred sorrow; indeed, he 
 was much more conscious of what a refuge the 
 garret had been to him in his boyhood, when he 
 longed to escape from the sharp, scolding voice 
 to which he never dared reply; but he forgot 
 this as he lifted out two gowns and examined 
 them critically. One was of shimmering gray, 
 with small bunches of purple flowers scattered 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 23 
 
 over it, and the other of thin changeable silk. 
 He held them out at arm s-length and reflected. 
 . They did not seem quite like the dresses Miss 
 Jane wore, but he could not tell why. Then a 
 thought struck him. He looked towards the 
 door by which he had entered, and though he 
 knew that in the empty house there were no 
 other curious eyes than those of the gray mouse, 
 he stepped back across the nneven floor, and 
 shut and bolted the door. There was a mirror 
 in one corner, hanging high upon the discolored 
 wall; its worn gilt frame flung a shadow on its 
 powdery surface, but Mr. Tommy, standing on 
 tiptoe, and holding the gray dress up in front 
 of him, could catch a glimpse of the high waist 
 and balloon sleeves. He shook his head: the 
 dresses would not do, he thought ; they did not 
 look like Miss Jane. He laid the gowns down 
 upon a cowhide trunk, upon the cover of which 
 " Dove " was marked in brass nailheads, and 
 began his search again. 
 
 There was not much to hope for among the 
 bonnets and chintz gowns and queer mantillas, 
 but almost at the bottom of the chest he found 
 a square package folded in silvered paper. This 
 he opened anxiously. It contained a pale pea- 
 green crepe shawl, embroidered along the edge, 
 and with heavy silk fringe laid straight and 
 smooth. Tommy breathed quick with pleasure. 
 
24 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 He could not have explained it, but this seemed 
 as though it belonged to Miss Jane. He re 
 placed the other things, and then closed the lid 
 of the chest and sat down upon it. 
 
 He shook the shawl out of its folds of forty 
 years, and held it up to dusk and gleam in the 
 sunshine. Yes, it was certainly beautiful, and 
 it was the very thing for Miss Jane. But how 
 should he give it to her ? Was it best to wrap 
 it up again and send it to her ; or had he better 
 throw it over his arm, and walk up the hill, and 
 just remark incidentally something about 
 shawls? He lifted the silvered paper, that it 
 might help him to decide, but it fell apart along 
 the worn creases. After all, that settled it. He 
 would carry it to her folded across his arm ; it 
 would make too much of it to present her with 
 a packet. 
 
 Pie shut the small window, but stopped to 
 turn the pennyroyal over, before he left the old 
 garret to its hot stillness. 
 
 The apothecary was not in a position to know 
 that Henry Temple was entertaining some gen 
 tlemen at dinner that evening, but it would have 
 spared him some pain could he have guessed it. 
 As it was, he was impatient for the tall clock in 
 the shop to strike eight, that, with the shawl 
 upon his arm, he might walk up the shadowy 
 lane to the white house on the hill. 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 25 
 
 As Mrs. Temple was too great an invalid to 
 be present on such occasions, Miss Jane took 
 the head of her brother s table. She was so 
 silent and timid a hostess that by degrees Henry 
 Temple s friends had ceased to feel that polite 
 ness made it necessary to try to include her in 
 their conversation. Miss Jane had no small 
 feminine opinions upon social or political prob 
 lems ; she was filled with mild astonishment to 
 learn that their talk of tier Aberglaube was a 
 religious discussion, and she saw no connection 
 between " Reform" and politics. Indeed, she 
 rarely knew what they were talking about, and 
 it was always a relief to her when she was 
 allowed to leave them to their cigars and wine, 
 and retire to the parlor. There, on this still 
 August evening while Tommy was hastening 
 up the hill, she was sitting, patiently waiting to 
 give them their coffee. There was a bowl of 
 roses on the table beside her, and she was try 
 ing, by the light of two candles in the twisted 
 arms of a tall candelabrum, to read one of her 
 brother s learned books. Miss Jane was con 
 stantly "improving her mind." As Tommy 
 caught a glimpse of her through one of the open 
 French windows, it seemed to him that there 
 was a halo round her bending head, such as he 
 had seen about the gracious faces of pictured 
 saints. 
 
26 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 It was unfortunate that, at that moment, 
 Henry Temple and his guests should have been 
 coming through the hall from the dining-room. 
 It was impossible not to see Tommy s shrink 
 ing figure in the doorway, his small face quiver 
 ing with embarrassment, and the green shawl 
 upon his arm making a spot of white under the 
 porch lamp. 
 
 "What does this person want, Jane?" her 
 brother said, in a low, annoyed tone. 
 
 "I I must ask you to excuse me, brother," 
 she answered, frightened, yet with the loyalty 
 of a gentle heart. "I think Mr. Dove has come 
 to see me ; so will you please let John pour 
 out the coffee?" 
 
 Henry Temple frowned. "Very well," he 
 said briefly; and then he joined again in the 
 drawing-room conversation of the men, explain 
 ing with good-natured carelessness that they 
 must take their coffee by themselves. 
 
 The apothecary followed Miss Jane to the 
 library, but he would not sit down; he stood 
 first on one foot, and then on the other, ner 
 vously rolling the shawl into a muff to hide his 
 hands. "I ll go right home again, ma am," 
 he said. "I won t interrupt you I won t 
 stay." 
 
 "Oh, please don t go, Mr. Dove," Miss Jane 
 remonstrated tremulously. "My brother is - 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 27 
 
 is occupied, but I 11 be glad if you will stay 
 and talk to me." 
 
 So Tommy stayed a little while. Once, when 
 Henry Temple came in to find some book, he 
 rose, and said, "Good-evening, sir," with re 
 spectful timidity. Mr. Temple s good nature 
 was restored by that time, and he answered, 
 "Oh, how are you, Tommy?" in a way which 
 warmed the apothecary s heart. He did not 
 stay long after that ; but when he rose to go, it 
 took some little time to find suitable language 
 in which to present his gift to Miss Jane. He 
 stumbled over his words as he tried to tell her 
 that he hoped she would accept it. "If you 
 will please to take it," he ended, holding the 
 shawl out to her entreatingly. 
 
 Miss Jane was as confused as he. "Indeed, 
 Mr. Dove" she protested. 
 
 "It was my my dear mother s," he said 
 imploringly. "I d like to think you were 
 wearing it. There never was anybody else I 
 could have given it to, except Mary Ellen 
 Boyce, and mother didn t like her, and if 
 if you would just be willing " 
 
 "Why," said Miss Jane, the tears coming into 
 her eyes with embarrassed pleasure, "I hardly 
 know how to refuse, you are so kind, and it is 
 so beautiful ; only I I ought not to accept it, 
 you know." 
 
28 MB. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 "Oh, please do, ma am!" burst out Tommy. 
 
 And Miss Jane could only take it, touching 
 it with her white fingers in womanly enjoyment 
 of its exquisite texture. " Why, it s as fine as 
 a cobweb," she said. "You are too kind, Mr. 
 Dove." 
 
 Tommy went home thrilled with happiness. 
 Miss Jane thought him "kind; " she had taken 
 his little present, and said it was "beautiful" ! 
 The very existence of Mary Ellen Boyce faded 
 out of his mind; his heart beat high with pride; 
 he said to himself that he really did not know 
 what he should do when Miss Jane went away 
 from Old Chester. 
 
 Perhaps that was the moment when a vague, 
 undefined thought first came into the apothe 
 cary s mind. Perhaps she need not go away? 
 Tommy was actually frightened at himself. 
 "Why, "he said aloud, "if Miss Jane knew I 
 had thought of such a thing, she would be very 
 angry with me." 
 
 Then the image of Henry Temple presented 
 itself, and Tommy shivered. Nevertheless, 
 with a sort of awful pleasure, he said again, 
 "Perhaps she need not go away ! " 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 29 
 
 IV. 
 
 That was the first of half a dozen calls. Miss 
 Jane began not only to enjoy them, but to look 
 forward to them. It was impossible not to be 
 touched by the subtle flattery of Tommy s tim 
 idity, and, following that, his honest belief in 
 her judgment which dared to be admiration; 
 but yet more flattering was the simplicity with 
 which he showed his happiness if he could but 
 be near her. It brought a new pleasure into 
 Miss Jane s life ; a pleasure which was, perhaps, 
 greater because her brother had been called away 
 from home for a few weeks, and she did not fear 
 his sarcasms. The amused and annoyed looks of 
 Mrs. Temple and Dick hurt her only when she 
 saw them ; she began to feel a certain bravery 
 for her own life which she had never known be 
 fore. Dearly as she loved these dear people, 
 and absorbed as she was in their interests, she 
 began to see that it was possible that she might 
 have an interest which should be all her own, 
 and to realize that there was room in the life 
 which they had seemed to fill for an affection 
 which did not need their sanction. She was 
 conscious of a feeling of proprietorship ; a new 
 and trembling dignity crept into her manner. 
 To be sure, it could be overthrown by a word. 
 Effie s remark that the green crepe shawl, which, 
 
30 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 one evening, she boldly threw across her shoul 
 ders, was "a hideous old thing," made her quick 
 to put it away; but there were some rose-gera 
 nium leaves from one of Tommy s nosegays be 
 tween its soft folds. The alteration in her man 
 ner was so slight, however, that Henry Temple, 
 at least, would never have noticed it, or been 
 particularly concerned that the apothecary should 
 call, had not Tommy s first visit after his return 
 fallen upon an evening when her brother needed 
 Miss Jane s services. 
 
 "Really, Euphemia," he said, on finding that 
 Jane had been summoned to the parlor to see 
 Mr. Dove, "isn t this thing getting to be some 
 thing more serious than a bore?" 
 
 Mr. Temple was standing with his back to 
 the fire, one elbow on the mantelshelf behind 
 him, and a cigar between his fingers. His 
 handsome face showed decided annoyance. "I 
 wanted Jane to copy some manuscript for me, 
 and here comes this confounded apothecary to 
 delay me. What business has the fellow to be 
 here, anyhow? What is Jane thinking of to 
 allow it?" 
 
 As Mr. Temple reflected upon his inconven 
 ience, his irritation increased. 
 
 "It s clear enough what Tommy s thinking 
 of," said Dick, who was lounging about the room, 
 with his hands in his pockets: "he s in love 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 31 
 
 with aunty. The romance of the apothecary is 
 a perfect nuisance in this household. I wanted 
 her to mend my cap for me to-night. Effie, you 
 humbug, why don t you learn to sew and mend 
 your brother s things?" 
 
 " Cause," Effie replied concisely; and then 
 she added, "I met him in the village yester 
 day, that Mr. Tommy Dove, an he asked me if 
 aunty was going to be at home last night, an 
 I told him no, she wasn t." 
 
 "But, Effie, dear," protested her mother from 
 the sofa, "she was at home." 
 
 "I know it," said Effie calmly, "but I didn t 
 want him round. I wanted her to play back 
 gammon with me, so I didn t want him round." 
 
 Mrs. Temple s troubled remonstrance was 
 drowned in her husband s rollicking laugh. 
 
 "Well done, Ef ! " he said; "but the ecclesi 
 astical game should teach you a regard for truth 
 though, on the whole, no ; it would have the 
 opposite effect, of course. Don t play it, child, 
 its influence upon your morals is so evident. 
 But, seriously, Euphemia Go to bed, Effie, 
 and remember, I will not allow untruthfulness ; " 
 and when she had gone pouting upstairs, for a 
 punishment which it chanced to be convenient 
 to her father to administer, for the child s 
 presence was a restraint in a conversation of this 
 nature, he finished his sentence : "I don t like 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 this at all. Has this person been coming here 
 to see Jane?" 
 
 "Yes, he has," said Dick, who was sitting 
 on the arm of his mother s sofa, and examining 
 the loop of his hunting-crop critically. "It s 
 perfectly ridiculous. Something ought to be 
 done." 
 
 "Oh, Richard, dear," said his mother, in her 
 weak voice, "don t say such a thing to your 
 father. It is nothing, my dear; he has called 
 occasionally, but I ve no doubt it has only been 
 about about my medicine." 
 
 "Nonsense," said her husband briefly, with 
 an annoyed glance at the clock. "I won t get 
 that manuscript off in the morning. Dick, just 
 tell me how long this thing has been going on, 
 will you? " 
 
 "Well," Dick answered, "he has been com 
 ing once a week, certainly. In fact, I think 
 this is the second time this week. Mother, 
 darling, you must take a good deal of medi 
 cine?" 
 
 "But there s no harm, Henry," Mrs. Temple 
 said anxiously. " Sometimes I think we are al 
 most selfish about Janey. AVe expect her to be 
 satisfied to have only our pleasures, not her own." 
 
 "Now, Euphemia," Mr. Temple answered, 
 gesticulating with his half -smoked cigar, "you 
 really must not be absurd, you know. I m per- 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 33 
 
 f ectly willing for Jane to have her own pleasures 
 when they are reasonable and proper. But I 
 don t propose to receive the apothecary at my 
 house to divert Jane Temple, granted it is 
 only diversion, and nothing more serious. But 
 I m inclined to think it is more serious. Do 
 you want Tommy for a brother-in-law, my 
 
 dear?" 
 
 "If Janey were fond of him " - Mrs. Temple 
 began, trembling. 
 
 "Euphemia," interrupted her husband, "you 
 have heard me remark, I think, that I hate a 
 fool; now try and understand, please, that I am 
 only anxious for Jane s best happiness. There s 
 nobody more anxious for her happiness than I 
 am. But do you suppose she could be happy 
 with such a person as this Tommy Dove? 
 Pshaw ! It is n t to be considered seriously, 
 it is preposterous ! " 
 
 He flung his cigar down on the smouldering 
 logs with an angry exclamation. 
 
 "Your father will have his joke," Mrs. Tem 
 ple said, looking at her son with wistful apol 
 ogy for her husband. "Of course, dear, I know 
 you only do what is best for us all. No doubt 
 it would be a great mistake for Janey ; I only 
 thought " - 
 
 "Don t think!" interrupted Henry Temple 
 with a laugh; "it is one of the greatest mis- 
 
34 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 takes. Never think; and don t argue about 
 things, my dear, just accept them. That is 
 what I am going to do now, and end this folly." 
 "And what aunty will do," Dick said, 
 "she 11 accept the apothecary." 
 
 I think not," returned his father grimly. 
 All this time, Mr. Tommy, unusually ner 
 vous, but very happy, was sitting in the chilly 
 parlor with Miss Jane. He had come to Henry 
 Temple s house that night with a purpose. He 
 knew that Miss Jane would very soon go away 
 from Old Chester, perhaps not to return for 
 years ; and unless he could persuade her to stay, 
 who could tell whether he might ever see her 
 again? And though he trembled at his own 
 presumption, he meant to try to persuade her. 
 lie had dreamed of this moment for weeks; 
 every word to her had been uttered with the 
 distinct intention of encouraging himself; every 
 look had betrayed his thought. 
 
 Mr. Tommy had felt vaguely that the atmos 
 phere of the place was against him. Yet Effie 
 was the embodiment of its antagonism, he 
 thought, rather than the master of the house, 
 and so of late he had, in many humble little 
 ways, tried to propitiate the child. He had 
 gathered small nosegays, and, tying a bit of 
 bright ribbon about them with awkward fingers, 
 had offered them to Miss Jane, with the request 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 35 
 
 that she would give them to "the little girl." 
 He never knew that, though she thanked him, 
 and told him he "was so kind to remember 
 Effie," the flowers went no further than Miss 
 Jane s own dressing-table. Nor did a game, 
 which he had purchased in the village, fare any 
 better ; nor a picture of a girl and a dog. But 
 as Mr. Tommy never guessed the gentle fate of 
 his gifts, he was not discouraged, and so con 
 tinued to offer them, with unabated hope that 
 the contemptuous Effie would soon dislike him 
 less. 
 
 On this sharp October night, he brought in 
 the pocket of his black coat six little red-cheeked 
 apples. He had polished them stealthily upon 
 his sleeve as he climbed the hill, and when he 
 laid them in a row upon the table, in front of 
 Miss Jane, they actually shone in the lamplight. 
 "They are paradise apples/ he said, "and I 
 brought them for the little girl. I thought may 
 be she would like them." 
 
 Miss Jane was very nervous that evening; 
 perhaps she had guessed the intention of the 
 apothecary s call; at all events, her mild face 
 was full of anxious indecision, though she was 
 strangely happy. 
 
 "Indeed, you are too good, Mr. Dove," she 
 said; she had hurried upstairs for the green 
 shawl, when he had been announced, and she 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 drew it now a little closer about her shoulders; 
 "Those paradise apples are so pretty." 
 
 "They are rather sour," Tommy answered 
 doubtfully, "but they seemed pretty, and I 
 thought the little girl might like to play with 
 them." 
 
 "We had one of those trees in the lower gar 
 den, when I was a child," said Miss Jane, "but 
 it is dead now; the garden has run wild in all 
 these years we have been away. I wish brother 
 could live here, and it could be taken care of, 
 and look as it used to." 
 
 "Do you?" Tommy said slowly. He was 
 not particularly anxious that Mr. Henry Tem 
 ple should remain in Old Chester. 
 
 "Yes," she responded; "but I suppose it 
 would be too lonely in the winter." 
 
 The apothecary hastened to agree with her in 
 this, and to tell her how desolate the great house 
 looked in winter, when the snow drifted across 
 the porch, or lay unbroken on the window ledges 
 and the thresholds. "The house is so high on 
 the hill, ma am," he explained, "that the wind 
 just sweeps it all the time. But it s pleasanter 
 in the valley, Miss Jane." 
 
 Then they talked of Old Chester as it was 
 long ago, and Miss Jane reminded him of the 
 coast on the Common. "The gypsies used to 
 camp there in the summer, do you remem- 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 37 
 
 ? but in the winter we children used to go 
 sledding. I had a blue sled, and Billy Spear 
 
 he was our coachman used to pull it up 
 
 the hill for me." 
 
 Mr. Tommy listened ecstatically, the palms 
 of his lean hands squeezed together between his 
 knees. "Yes, yes," he said; "oh, dear me, 
 yes, indeed, it was pleasant ! If you were 
 going to be here in the winter again, ma am, 
 I_I could pull the blue sled up the hill for 
 you, Miss Jane." 
 
 "Oh," replied Miss Jane sadly, without the 
 slightest consciousness of humor, "it s broken 
 now; the children broke it. And your rheu 
 matism, Mr. Dove?" 
 
 "But I wouldn t mind that," cried Tommy, 
 "oh, my, no ! Oh, Miss Jane, if you only 
 could stay ! " 
 
 "But I couldn t, you know, Mr. Dove," she 
 answered, the color coming and going in her 
 faded cheek, and her voice unsteady. "I 
 couldn t let brother s family go back without 
 me, and I could not be here alone, of course. 
 But I shall miss Old Chester." 
 
 She seemed to crouch further back into her 
 chair, but Tommy sat quite upon the edge of 
 his. Their two hearts beat so quickly that they 
 were both a little breathless as they spoke. 
 
 "But," said Mr. Tommy, huskily, rubbing 
 
Mlt. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 his hands together and edging yet farther for 
 ward, "if I I mean if you if we if it 
 could be arranged ; if if - Oh, don t you 
 understand, ma am ? " 
 
 "Oh, no, indeed, I don t," said Miss Jane 
 faintly; "not at all, I m sure. And it could n t 
 -could it?" 
 
 "Oh, my goodness, Miss Jane, "said Tommy, 
 almost crying, "I ll I ll do anything if 
 you if you just will " 
 
 Here the door opened, and Henry Temple 
 walked leisurely into the room. 
 
 "Ah, Jane," he said, looking with calm 
 directness at Tommy, yet without the slightest 
 sign that he saw him, though the apothecary had 
 risen and bowed, and bowed again. "There is 
 some manuscript on my table which I wish you 
 would be so kind as to copy for me." 
 
 "Yes, brother," she said, white and trem 
 bling, " I will. But Mr. Dove you did n t 
 see that Mr. Dove is here." 
 
 "Oh," returned Mr. Temple, gazing quite 
 blankly at Tommy s quivering little face, while 
 he fumbled for his glasses. He adjusted them, 
 and his dark eyebrows gathered in a fleeting 
 frown. "Ah, Tommy? Good-evening, Tommy. 
 You will excuse Miss Temple, I am sure. Jane, 
 be good enough to attend to that, if you please." 
 He stood holding the door open and looking 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 39 
 
 down at Tommy with a high, calm glance which 
 burned into the apothecary s soul. 
 
 "Brother!" Jane cried, her voice unsteady 
 with anger. Yet she did not finish her sen 
 tence. Mr. Tommy interrupted her. 
 
 "Oh, yes," he said, "oh, dear me why, 
 certainly yes. I m just going, just going ! " 
 He seemed to shrink and grow smaller, as he 
 slipped sideways past Henry Temple and sought 
 blindly for his hat in the hall. "Yes, yes," he 
 repeated. "Good-night, sir, good-night." He 
 did not even look at Miss Jane, but opened the 
 front door, and, stumbling with haste, without 
 stopping for his lantern which he had left at the 
 foot of the steps, he found his way under the 
 heavy shadows of the trees to the gate. 
 
 The sharp, cold wind seemed to brush the 
 mist of his preposterous dream aside. He closed 
 the iron gate with a clang behind him, and ran 
 with all his might down the stony lane, his little 
 legs shaking under him, and his eyes stinging 
 with tears. 
 
 "Oh, my!" he said to himself. There 
 was a lump in his throat, and he almost sobbed 
 aloud. 
 
 That next hour in Jane Temple s unselfish 
 life left its lasting imprint on her gentle face. 
 She had followed her brother into the library, 
 and, trembling in every limb, and with fright- 
 
40 Ml*. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 ened eyes, listened to Henry Temple s announce 
 ment that lie meant to put a stop to this 
 folly. 
 
 "You don t understand these things, Jane," 
 he said, "and it s my duty to protect you from 
 the consequences of your ignorance. I m al 
 ways kind to the poor people about here, I 
 make a point of it; they are well meaning and 
 inoffensive, but kindness from a woman in 
 your position to such a person as this apothe 
 cary will be misunderstood. lie will begin to 
 imagine he is in love with you." 
 
 "He s making a fool of himself," Dick 
 broke in. "Somebody ought to do something 
 about it. He s trespassing upon your good 
 nature, aunty." 
 
 "Dick," said Miss Jane, holding her head 
 high, "I will listen to anything your father 
 says, because he is my brother, and he has a 
 right to speak, but I will not hear you say such 
 things. Mr. Dove is my friend. I will not 
 listen to you." 
 
 There was a moment of astonished silence; 
 then, at a look from his father, Dick muttered 
 an apology. But Henry Temple, with a calm 
 indifference which might almost have been mis 
 taken for kindness, added one or two keen, 
 stern words, and then turned to leave the room. 
 He had forgotten the haste about his manu- 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 41 
 
 script, and, as there was no reason why he 
 should have the discomfort of seeing his sister s 
 pain, he preferred to go away. 
 
 But he stopped in the doorway, his hands in 
 his pockets, and looked back at Miss Jane. " I 
 have no fear that you will forget yourself, Jane," 
 he said. "Do not imagine for a moment that I 
 distrust you, or your taste. It is mere con 
 sideration for poor little Tommy that makes me 
 speak." 
 
 When he had gone, and Dick, with an odd 
 sensation of shame, had followed him, Mrs. 
 Temple covered her face with her thin hands 
 and burst into tears. 
 
 "Oh, Janey, you wouldn t leave us? You 
 couldn t! I I m no use, and Henry depends 
 so on you he would n t have any comfort with 
 out you, and oh, we couldn t get along with 
 out you. Of course " sobbing "Henry 
 speaks only for your best happiness. He said 
 so. For you would n t be happy here with Mr. 
 -Mr. Dove; and that s Henry s first consid 
 eration, of course." 
 
 Jane Temple s anger melted under those tears. 
 The old love asserted itself in her faithful heart. 
 "They need me," she thought tenderly. But 
 though she comforted her sister-in-law with gen 
 tle words, the pain remained, and kept the tears 
 stinging in her eyes, and stirred her into a piti- 
 
42 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 fill passion of belief that her own life "had a 
 claim." But when at last, hurt and exhausted 
 and full of uncertainty, she locked herself into 
 her own room, she was vaguely happy. Her 
 eyes filled with gentler tears, and her lips smiled ; 
 and when she knelt down to say her prayers, 
 and prayed that she might be submissive and 
 patient, she buried her tear-stained face in the 
 green shawl, and thanked God that Mr. Dove 
 loved her ! All that night she tried to see her 
 duty, to conquer her selfishness. But she could 
 not help remembering that she must be just to 
 the apothecary, and that she had some right to 
 her own life; and then the habit of unselfish 
 ness brought the first petition to her lips again : 
 "help me to do my duty!" She longed for 
 day to come that she might hear the rest of Mr. 
 Tommy s sentence, and comfort her heart with 
 his honest love. "But I must tell him it can 
 never be," she made herself say. 
 
 V. 
 
 Not since that solemn day when Mrs. Dove 
 had been carried over the threshold of the un 
 used front door had Tommy crossed it ; but some 
 instinct which he could not have defined made 
 the apothecary, breathless with his run down 
 the hill, brush the cobwebs away from the key- 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 43 
 
 hole, and fumble over his bunch of keys, that 
 he might enter now. 
 
 He struck a match in the darkness of the hall, 
 and, curving his lean hand about it, mounted 
 the stairs to the parlor above the shop. On the 
 mantelpiece, in the head of a dusty china shep 
 herdess, was a candle, bent sideways by the 
 summer s heats. This he lighted and put upon 
 the centre-table. 
 
 The parlor had the musty smell of a long- 
 closed room, and as he touched the table he felt 
 the grit of dust. He sat down upon the slippery 
 horsehair sofa, and buried his face in his hands. 
 The candle flickered a little in the current of air 
 from the open door, and cast upon the wall a 
 grotesque shadow of his bending head ; a drop of 
 wax fell with a white splash upon the rosewood 
 table. Tommy raised his head, and looked about 
 the dreary room. He did not spare himself one 
 detail of its ugliness. 
 
 The furniture was stiff and clumsy. There 
 were engravings upon the walls of celebrated 
 persons in their libraries, and a print of Henry 
 Clay s deathbed, suitably framed in a wiry 
 imitation of crape. A yellowing cast of little 
 Samuel knelt in one corner, and some faded 
 family photographs of not attractive people 
 hung in a row high above the black mantel, on 
 which was a large conch shell, whose curving 
 
44 ME. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 red lip held a bunch of dried grass and certain 
 silky white seed-pods. There was a silent clock 
 upon the mantel, too, with a bell-glass over it, 
 and a bunch of wax flowers in a blue vase ; and 
 on a fuzzy green mat upon a side table were the 
 family Bible and the large parlor lamp with its 
 knitted shade. 
 
 Mr. Tommy s haggard eyes traveled slowly 
 from point to point. How had he dared to 
 dream that he might ask Henry Temple s sister 
 to come to such a home ! But oh, how, in this 
 last month, his life had been brightened by the 
 mere thought of such a thing ! Tommy squeezed 
 his hands together and groaned ; but it was be 
 cause of his intolerable humiliation rather than 
 his despair, for now Miss Jane seemed such 
 worlds away from him that he did not realize he 
 had ever hoped. His whole lean body tingled 
 with mortification. He pressed his fingers hard 
 upon his eyes, and his breath came fast. 
 
 The candle burned down to the head of the 
 china shepherdess, guttered, smoked, and, wa 
 vering into a sickly blue flame, went out. The 
 darkness of the long-closed room seemed palpa 
 ble as it closed about him; but before his eyes 
 was still the glimmer of the lamps in Mr. Tem 
 ple s drawing-room, and the silence of the empty 
 house was jarred by that insolently courteous 
 voice. 
 
ME. TOMMY DOVE. 45 
 
 By and by there was a faint lightening of the 
 heavy darkness; through the round hole in the 
 closed wooden shutter came the gray gleam of 
 dawn. It touched the motionless figure on the 
 old sofa, and little by little the furniture began 
 to take vague shapes in the shadows. Tommy 
 lifted his head, and watched the daylight creep 
 stealthily about. 
 
 At last he rose, slowly and stiffly, and went to 
 the window and tried to push the shutter back. 
 The ivy held it outside, and the hinges were 
 rusty, but it yielded a little, and then opened 
 half way. A white mist shut out the hills, 
 and a stone s-throw from the gate the road 
 was swallowed up in it. 
 
 The cold air struck his face like a rebuff from 
 the great world outside ; he shivered as he closed 
 and bolted the shutter. He looked to see that 
 he had left no matches about, and that there was 
 no spark smouldering in the china shepherdess ; 
 then he crept silently out of the room. 
 
 Mr. Tommy Dove had made up his mind. 
 
 First he wrote a line to Mrs. McDonald, and 
 pinned it to the white curtain in the kitchen 
 window; then he went upstairs to the garret. 
 There was a traveling-bag there, he thought. 
 He groped in the dark corner under the mirror 
 until he laid his hand upon it. As he left the 
 room he caught sight of Jhe blue chest, and his 
 
46 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 sudden pang of regret was like physical pain. 
 He took the shabby bag to his room, and with 
 unsteady hands thrust a few of his possessions 
 into it. His money he put into his breast 
 pocket, and then looked at himself in the glass 
 to see if any one could guess that under his 
 tightly buttoned coat lay his little store of 
 wealth. Some loose change he dropped into a 
 snuff-box, which it was his custom to use instead 
 of a purse, and as he did so he noticed one new, 
 shining penny. The habit of these last weeks 
 asserted itself, and he thought of Effie; but it 
 was only for a moment. 
 
 A little later, Mr. Tommy Dove opened his 
 shop door and let himself out into the dawn. 
 
 In the thick mist that covered the garden, the 
 frosted flower-stalks stood up like brown, thin 
 ghosts, and there was a heavy scent of wet fallen 
 leaves. Mr. Tommy peered anxiously about 
 for a last pansy, or for some belated sweet pea 
 that had not yet taken wing; but he could find 
 only two small, dull asters, and a wilted spray 
 of salvia rimmed witli frosted dew. These he 
 picked, tying them together with a long, wet 
 blade of grass. lie looked back once at the old 
 stone house; the reddening ivy on the south wall 
 was thinned by frost, and was shining faintly, 
 as though it had rained in the night. The 
 damp horse - chestnut v leaves that covered the 
 
MR. TOMMY DOVE. 47 
 
 ground like a yellow mantle hardly rustled as 
 he walked through them to the road. 
 
 It did not take Mr. Tommy very long to 
 climb the lane to Henry Temple s gate. He 
 did not enter, but stood pressing his face against 
 the wet, cold iron, and staring up the dim drive 
 way. 
 
 "Oh, dear me! " he said, with a catch in his 
 breath. "Why, just think of it, I 11 never see 
 her again ; and the only thing in the world I 
 can do for her is just to go away ! " 
 
 Then, with a dull ache in his heart, he began 
 to say to himself that he knew what a relief it 
 would be to Miss Jane not to see him. 
 
 "She has such a tender heart," he said; "she 
 would be so sorry to make me feel badly by say 
 ing no. Oh my, to think I ever supposed 
 she d say anything else ! It seems so selfish in 
 me, but but I did." 
 
 He looked at the bunch of wilted flowers, 
 and touched them softly with reverent fingers. 
 A moment later he laid them down against the 
 stone gatepost, and then went slowly back into 
 the mist. 
 
 Miss Jane Temple, still irresolute, still mis 
 erable, but yet strangely happy, waited for Mr. 
 Tommy all that dim October day. She did not 
 hear until nearly a week later, a week of mis- 
 
48 MR. TOMMY DOVE. 
 
 givings and grief and wounded pride, that the 
 shop in the village was closed, and that no one 
 knew just where the apothecary had gone nor 
 when he would return. She never saw the asters 
 and the salvia ; and the great iron gate, swing 
 ing open to let her go away from her old home, 
 told her no story. 
 
 "After all," Mrs. Temple comforted herself, 
 when the family were safe in town again, "we 
 needn t have been anxious. He never could 
 have dreamed of such a thing, though Henry 
 thought he did, and so did Janey! But an 
 unmarried woman of her age is very likely to 
 make such a mistake." 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 I. 
 
 "BuT what does she see in him to love? " 
 
 " Well, she sees something, evidently ; and if 
 Annie sees it, that is all that is necessary." 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes; I know. But if he would 
 only show us some of the good things I 
 want to like him, I m sure." 
 
 Annie Murray had been married that morn 
 ing, and now, in the early December dusk, her 
 four sisters, tired by the excitement of the day, 
 quivering yet from the pain of parting, sat by 
 the fire in the parlor talking it all over. They 
 had said to one another how pretty she was, how 
 nicely her gray traveling dress fitted, and how 
 well their mother s pearl pin looked in the lace 
 about her throat ; and then Miss Sarah Murray, 
 the eldest of the five sisters, said, with an effort 
 that brought the blood into her delicate old face, 
 "And and Mr. Calkins; he appeared very 
 well, I thought." 
 
 No one spoke for a moment. The repression 
 which they had put upon themselves after Annie 
 
50 
 
 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 had finally, despairingly, set their pleadings 
 aside and engaged herself to Paul Calkins, that 
 repression still commanded them. 
 
 "Oh, yes, he appeared very well," Mary 
 said vaguely. And then there was silence for 
 the space of a breath, till Miss Nannie broke 
 ont with the cry of " What does she see in him 
 to love?" To hear their own thought put into 
 words startled these four gentle, kindly women 
 like a thread of electricity leaping around their 
 circle by the fireside. 
 
 Annie was their youngest; and yet not so 
 young that she had not caught a little of their 
 sweet precision, their soft, reserved femininity. 
 The people in Mercer who knew the Murray s, 
 and were of a younger and more irreverent age, 
 called them the five old maids; but their friends 
 of a more courteous generation always spoke of 
 them as the "Murray girls," though Miss Sarah 
 was at least fifty-five, and Mary, next in youth 
 to Annie, was over forty. No one dreamed 
 that any of the Murray girls would marry ; no 
 one ever had dreamed of such a thing since the 
 time when Edward Paul jilted Miss Sarah for 
 a cleverer woman, who dazzled his eyes and 
 blinded him, even as the flare of a candle may 
 sometimes hide a star. Annie was a baby when 
 Sarah Murray s grief came to her, a grief 
 which touched her life like a consecrating hand, 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 51 
 
 putting her quietly back from happiness into 
 usefulness. She devoted herself to her sisters; 
 especially to Annie, to whom she gave that 
 mother-love which childless women know. An 
 nie was nearly thirty years younger than Sarah, 
 but she too was a "Murray girl;" quiet, old- 
 fashioned, old-maidish, the irreverent said. 
 So when, at last, suddenly, Annie had a lover, 
 people looked a little blank, and said: "What? 
 Annie Murray? Why, we never supposed" 
 And then they had to adjust their idea of the 
 five sisters, and observe that Annie at twenty- 
 seven, a little prim, with sweet, delicate, old- 
 fashioned ways, was yet an exceedingly pretty 
 woman, full of the calm attraction of pleasant 
 silence. They began to say that Annie was so 
 quiet that they had never known her. "That 
 youngest Murray girl is like a handful of rose 
 leaves," somebody said; "but I believe she has 
 more to her than any of the others." And then 
 all her little world began to take the greatest 
 interest in her wooing. 
 
 Somehow, in spite of their reserve, it came 
 out that the four older sisters were opposed to 
 the match. Perhaps their disapproval was 
 guessed by the trouble in Annie s eyes, or the 
 servants tattle betrayed it, or people may have 
 seen for themselves and then drawn their own 
 conclusions the coarse, weak lines in Paul s 
 
52 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 face; a face which made the pathetic confession 
 that the poor soul behind it, agonize as it might, 
 was dogged and hunted by the body, dominated 
 by the flesh. 
 
 But there was one other way in which the 
 sisters disapproval had been made known : Mr. 
 Calkins had been willing to laugh a little, good- 
 naturedly, at the "four old maids who were 
 afraid of him." 
 
 "That he could speak of such matters, Annie 
 dear, that he could tell anybody that we were 
 not pleased don t you see? It shows that he 
 does not have the delicacy that that we might 
 wish," Miss Sarah had said to her youngest 
 sister. 
 
 "You don t understand, Sarah," Annie an 
 swered sadly. She never tried by insistence 
 to make them appreciate him ; perhaps she was 
 too sensitive for his dignity to take such means; 
 perhaps she realized the worthlessness of regard 
 gained by insistence. 
 
 Miss Sarah and the other three alarmed and 
 disapproving women said all they could, prayed 
 for her, agonized over her, cowered at the threat 
 of the future, and then, when at last, in spite 
 of all, Annie Murray gave her word, then they 
 were silent, even to each other, silent save 
 when, with the fine deceit of love, they ap 
 plauded to their little world their sister s choice. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 53 
 
 Now, however, when it was all over, and she 
 had married him and gone away, and the four 
 bereaved women sat here alone before the parlor 
 fire, Miss Nannie s grief spoke: "What does 
 she see in him? " 
 
 " His painting attracts her," Emily said, 
 weakly. And then they all four glanced up at 
 the picture above the fireplace: it had been 
 Paul Calkins s present to his sisters-in-law. 
 
 It was a woman s face pressing itself through 
 crowding vine leaves, as though a girl in a vine 
 yard looked for a moment out upon the world: 
 a dim face, with smiling lips and eyes deep with 
 pain, but a pain that had nothing spiritual in 
 it; a beautiful face, yet full of the bitterness 
 that lies behind sensuality. 
 
 "Her soul is trying to speak, but it cannot," 
 Annie Murray said, when the sisters stood look 
 ing at the canvas, embarrassed at a gift which 
 was kindly meant, but which was not, Miss 
 Nannie said, "pleasing." 
 
 Miss Sarah adjusted her glasses twice, pathet 
 ically anxious to see what Annie saw. Emily 
 blushed and turned away, for the bare bosom 
 offended her, "and she has too red, a lip to be 
 nice," Miss Emily thought. Annie looked at 
 it until a mist shut it out, and then she turned 
 and said something to her lover which the sis 
 ters could not hear, but which made the tears 
 
54 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 start in his eyes, while he caught her in his arms 
 and kissed her; which was, Miss Emily said to 
 herself, "most uncalled for." 
 
 Now, to-night, when Annie, as Paul s wife, 
 was whirling out into the great world, whirling 
 away from all the love which had protected her 
 youth, the four sisters looked up at the painted 
 face, and one sighed, and another shook her 
 head, and dear Miss Nannie broke down and 
 cried. 
 
 "And his name," she said, with a sob, - 
 "Calkins! Sister, really, a man with a name 
 like that can t be can t be" 
 
 "Paul is a good name, Nannie," Miss" Sarah 
 tried to comfort her. 
 
 "And we don t know anything about his peo- 
 pie ! " 
 
 "His father and mother are dead," Emily 
 cautioned her: "we ought not to speak disre 
 spectfully of his parents." 
 
 "I did n t mean to," Nannie answered, wip 
 ing her eyes; "only, Emily, Calkins is a shock 
 ing name ; and he told me himself that he has 
 a brother who is a mechanic. Just think how 
 father would feel ! " 
 
 "Now, Nannie, Nannie," interposed the old 
 est sister, "that is very wrong. I am surprised 
 at you, my dear. I m sure, if he will make 
 Annie happy, I don t care what his brother is. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. o5 
 
 I only wish I could see the amiable qualities 
 that Annie does, and that I didn t have just a 
 little misgiving at his fondness for his glass," 
 Miss Sarah ended delicately. 
 
 "Annie feels," Emily hastened to explain, 
 "that his living alone so much has encouraged 
 bachelor habits. I believe gentlemen living- 
 alone are fond of their glass at dinner. I hope 
 Annie will induce him to drink milk. It is so 
 much more nourishing." 
 
 There was no answer save Miss Sarah s 
 sigh; the firelight lapsed and then leaped up, 
 summoning shadows into outline against the 
 dusk, and showing the dignified, comfortable 
 room, which, to the sisters eyes, was full of 
 suggestions of Annie. There was the old-fash 
 ioned square piano, bought just after the war, 
 when the Murrays had more money than in 
 these days of falling interest; Annie had played 
 her little tunes upon it in the summer twilights 
 and winter evenings, ever since Mary had given 
 her her first music lessons, nearly twenty years 
 ago now. The little prim water-color sketches 
 hanging between the windows were Annie s, 
 made before she knew Paul ; after meeting him 
 she painted no more, which was a grief to her 
 sisters, who could not know how joyfully a soul 
 may recognize that the art it has dared to touch 
 is too great to be essayed by anything but great- 
 
50 THE FACE ON THE \VALL. 
 
 ness. There was a sampler Annie had worked 
 when she was ten, used now as a screen be 
 tween the sofa and the fire ; and near the hearth, 
 the little low chair on which she loved to sit, 
 her chin propped on her hands, staring into 
 the flames. Everything reminded them of her; 
 and most of all, the bunch of white roses in a 
 vase upon the table. She had held them that 
 morning when she was married. 
 
 "Oh, if he will only be good to her," Miss 
 Nannie said. "But he is so strange ! " 
 
 That was the real trouble, the real fear: 
 Paul was so "strange." That he was an artist, 
 that he painted unpleasant pictures, that he had 
 a vulgar name, even that he was fond of his 
 glass, these were superficial objections. Be 
 low them was a grim and terrifying fact: he 
 was unkind to Annie ! lie was careless of 
 her feelings; he was not polite to her ("that s 
 where the mechanic comes in," Miss Nannie 
 sighed). lie had been so impatient and irritable 
 while they were engaged that more than once 
 the sisters had seen traces of tears on her face ; 
 lie forgot his appointments with her, and then 
 laughed at her anxiety. lie loved her? Oh, 
 of course, of course. At least, he seemed to at 
 times. Certainly, he was not hampered by any 
 reserve or delicacy in expressing his affection 
 when he felt it. lie did not hesitate to kiss 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 57 
 
 Annie before the sisters, although the four 
 elderly women blushed hotly, and looked away, 
 and wondered how Annie could endure "such 
 things." Still, that was Love, no doubt. But 
 what sort of love was it that could be unkind? 
 What weight did it have against rudeness that 
 once Miss Emily found him on his knees before 
 Annie, saying hoarsely, "I m a brute to you ! " 
 
 "You are! Emily said to herself bitterly. 
 "If it wasn t true, there might be some merit 
 in saying so. You d better mend your man 
 ners than say how bad they are." 
 
 But Annie was apparently so sure of his love 
 that his manners, which the sisters felt spoke 
 his character, caused her no concern. Yet how 
 could love like that insure her happiness ? 
 
 No wonder that these four women, who also 
 loved her, sat with heavy hearts about the 
 hearth on this evening of Annie Murray s wed 
 ding-day. 
 
 II. 
 
 When the letters began to come, there was 
 nothing to read between the lines. Paul s 
 work, Paul s plans, Paul s high ideals, the 
 four Misses Murray read of these until they 
 felt, as Miss Nannie said, "as though dear Paul 
 occupied Annie s thoughts very much." 
 
 "Well, that is as it should be," Emily said 
 
58 THE FACE OX THE }} ALL. 
 
 sturdily. "I m sure if she wasn t attached to 
 him, then we should have cause for anxiety." 
 
 And they felt they could conscientiously say 
 to their friends that Annie was very happy, 
 even though they themselves were not happy 
 about her. 
 
 Once in the first year Miss Nannie went to 
 see Annie, and came back looking older, and 
 with vague, half-frightened perplexity in her 
 face. "I cannot understand Paul," she told 
 her sisters; "but I in sure he means to do 
 right." 
 
 And then, little by little, she confessed her 
 perplexities: Annie had very little money; 
 Nannie felt it was fortunate that her own quar 
 ter s allowance had scarcely been touched save 
 for this trip. Annie was a little fussy about 
 taking it, but Paul told her not to be foolish. 
 "Paul is very sensible about such things," Nan 
 nie said. It did not seem as though they were 
 living in a pleasant neighborhood; but Annie 
 explained that by saying that rents were high, 
 and Paul did if t mind where he lived, he was 
 so full of his work. 
 
 "That shows a good spirit," Emily declared; 
 
 and Miss Nannie said, "Yes; oh, of course," 
 
 and sighed; "and yet," she ended, "Paul does 
 
 say such such wrong things to Annie! " 
 
 "Does Annie seem happy?" Sarah asked, 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 59 
 
 putting her sewing down in her lap because her 
 hands trembled. 
 
 "Yes," Nannie answered; "but I don t 
 know why she should be! " 
 
 It was nearly a year later that Miss Sarah 
 made her visit; it was then that the baby was 
 born, and died. Annie had grieved, but not as 
 one would think a woman would grieve for her 
 first - born ; her only thought seemed to be to 
 get well as soon as possible, for Paul s sake. 
 Her illness and his anxiety about her which 
 took the form of excessive irritability inter 
 fered with his work : she must get well ! As 
 for Paul, it seemed to Miss Sarah that he was 
 quite without natural feeling. 
 
 "You are well out of it! "was all he said 
 when, with clear, bright eyes, he stood looking 
 down at the placid mystery of the little dead 
 face. But he stood there a long time. This 
 little creature had stolen out of Annie s love 
 and his, parting like a curtain their conscious 
 nesses, and then turning for a moment on the 
 threshold of death to look back, wise and mock 
 ing, before it slipped out into silence. 
 
 Perhaps Paul, looking down at the dead 
 child, felt afraid of its little separate existence, 
 loved it, hated it, wondered at it ; wished he 
 could follow it and grasp the mystery; felt, per 
 haps, half sorry for the unspent life, yet felt, 
 
60 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 too, the pang of the prisoner who sees freedom 
 granted to some one else. Perhaps he was con 
 fronted by his fatherhood, and it came into his 
 mind that with such a father the little quiver 
 ing, hesitating life, blown out into the darkness, 
 was well rid of living? One cannot tell. The 
 tears were in his eyes, and he turned to Miss 
 Sarah, with a laugh: "This world isn t a good 
 place; the young one is well out of it." 
 
 When Miss Sarah went home, she did not 
 attempt any further disguise with herself or 
 her sisters : the marriage had turned out badly. 
 Annie was very poor, for her quarterly allow 
 ance was not enough to support two, and Paul s 
 pictures did not seem, Miss Sarah said, "to 
 be popular." "Oh, no doubt he s fond of her 
 in his way," the older sister admitted with 
 an effort; but he was unkind to her, bitterly 
 neglectful, full of insistent demands upon her 
 time and strength and love. These were the 
 facts, and the four women had to accept them as 
 a settled grief. Furthermore, they were forced 
 to realize that they were helpless to make things 
 better; and such a realization gives to the ob 
 server of an unhappy marriage a pang which, 
 bad as their condition may be, the principals do 
 not know. 
 
 The summing up of it all was that Paul drank. 
 There could at last be no doubt of this. It 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 61 
 
 was the day the baby was buried that Miss 
 Sarah s eyes were pitilessly opened to it. She 
 had gone out with him to the cemetery, and had 
 come back touched in spite of her resentment. 
 He wept, she told her sisters afterwards, as he 
 carried the little coffin in his arms from the 
 carriage to the grave ; and when they came home 
 to Annie, and to the house where the shadow 
 seemed still to linger, Paul was so absorbed in 
 his grief that he was entirely forgetful of her 
 presence, and "quite gave way," Miss Sarah 
 said, in that awed voice with which a woman 
 comments on a man s tears. "And then," she 
 went on, "I thought in the evening that he 
 seemed very much moved; he was leaning his 
 head on his hands, and did not answer when I 
 spoke to him, and I was quite alarmed, fearing 
 that he was in a swoon. But I went up to him, 
 and his breath I I realized what it 
 was," sighed Miss Sarah; "and such conduct 
 shows he did not love the dear little baby." 
 
 "Oh, poor Annie, poor child!" said the sis 
 ters. 
 
 They never dreamed, these four tender wo 
 men, how Sarah s pity, her very presence, had 
 been an intolerable burden to Annie. That 
 well - meant, tender intrusion of pity which 
 comes to the woman whose trouble lies between 
 herself and her husband, too deep to be reached 
 
62 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 by any outside comfort, rouses sometimes a 
 helpless impatience, almost an irritation, that 
 has to be smothered under perfunctory accept 
 ance and vague acknowledgments of kindness. 
 
 Annie drew a long breath of relief when her 
 sister went away ; and then she cried for very 
 pity of herself that she could not feel that old 
 dear regret of missing Sarah. She was glad 
 she and Paul were alone again, alone with their 
 grief for the little baby and with the absorbing 
 interest of living. 
 
 Very likely, Annie, in the stress and strain 
 of her life, never quite realized how her sisters 
 suffered because of her suffering. Little by 
 little, as time went by and she did not see them, 
 and their pleasant, gossiping letters came into 
 circumstances of which they had 110 comprehen 
 sion, and touched with chattering, tender light 
 ness upon subtleties of human nature which they 
 could not understand, little by little they grew 
 unreal to her. Sometimes, with sad self -con 
 sciousness, she felt that her love for them was 
 the child s love for the things of childhood. It 
 was through no fault of theirs or hers ; it was 
 the inexorableness of time. Instead of living 
 tranquilly in the old house, set in its quiet gar 
 den, with her Sunday - school class for a vital 
 interest, her bits of fancy-work and her improv 
 ing reading, her calm, amiable interest in her 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 63 
 
 neighbors, Annie had been looking into the 
 depths of a human soul. 
 
 She knew that if she could open the parlor 
 door some evening, and join the lamp-lighted 
 circle about the table, she should find the old 
 life again, as it had always been. She knew 
 the very gesture with which Miss Sarah would 
 open the evening paper, and she could hear 
 Nannie s invariable question, "Well, who s 
 dead and who s married, sister?" and then the 
 comments on the news, shrewd and sometimes a 
 little severe, but quite devoid of any knowledge 
 of life. She could see the satisfied air with 
 which Miss Emily would shake out some bit of 
 fancy-work and say, "There! I ve done three 
 fingers to -night I" and she would find herself 
 smiling as she remembered the deep interest of 
 the moment when Mary s market-book would be 
 opened for accounts, and for comments, and for 
 surprise at the butcher s charges. It would all 
 be the same ; yet what a stranger she would be 
 if she joined the group about the table ! 
 
 Her very tenderness for her old life declared 
 that she had become its observer ; and the mo 
 ment that the consciousness comes, of observing 
 Life, or Love, or a situation, the candid mind 
 knows that it is an outsider. It was this re 
 cognition of alteration in herself which was the 
 real pang to Annie; in finding herself she had 
 
64 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 lost her sisters, although they did not know it. 
 She knew they thought her unhappy; she knew 
 that by no possibility could she ever make clear 
 to them the happiness which brooded in her 
 heart, the exultation of her knowledge of her 
 husband s nature, a certainty of knowledge 
 which even Paul could not shake. 
 
 "Why do you believe in me?" he cried out 
 to her once. "Don t trust me, don t believe in 
 me, Annie ! " 
 
 "It is because you are you, Paul," she said 
 patiently. 
 
 "But you don t know me ! " he said, with the 
 voice of one who tries to throw off some burden. 
 "Why can t you let me go? I am not what 
 you think I am. Let me go." 
 
 "I will never let you go." 
 
 "You ll have to, some time," he said bru 
 tally. But Annie could meet that without flinch 
 ing. 
 
 Perhaps her patient insight taught her how 
 he might chafe under the restraint of her ideal 
 of him, and so she could make allowance for 
 his irritation ; or perhaps she called it humility, 
 and believed in him the more for it. Love can 
 do such things. But one falls to questioning 
 whether such love can realize that the idealiza 
 tion which holds a man up to his best, despite 
 himself, has all the danger of the stimulant. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 65 
 
 Certainly, Love s splendid courage rarely stops 
 for such reasoning, just as it is rarely generous 
 enough to allow its beloved to create his own 
 ideal. 
 
 "See what I ve brought you to !" said Paul, 
 lifting his face from her knees, and flinging out 
 one trembling hand. 
 
 u Yes; and it s all wrong, Paul. But some 
 day it will stop." 
 
 Her faith seemed to dazzle him ; he put his 
 head down again, and lifted the hem of her dress 
 and kissed it. "I 11 go in to the Picture," he 
 said after a while. "Bring me my palette; I 11 
 go to work." 
 
 Her face lightened as a flower beaten by rain 
 lifts itself to sudden sunshine. But he glanced 
 at her with half -wearied, half -contemptuous pity. 
 "What do you make of my work being best 
 after a spree? " 
 
 Only the smile in her eyes answered him. 
 
 It was no wonder that Paul was stung when 
 he looked at Annie s surroundings. Annie 
 Murray had never known the forlornness of 
 "trying to get along" until he had taken her 
 happiness and comfort into his keeping. But 
 she learned it then. 
 
 They had boarded for a time after the baby 
 died, and then lodged ; but even Annie quailed 
 at that kind of life, and now, at last, they had 
 
66 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 drifted to the top floor of a building given up 
 to many small businesses, and little personal 
 industries. It had been a private house once, 
 and it had still a curious reserve and dignity 
 about it, though the crescent of leaded glass 
 above the entrance was broken in one or two 
 places, and the slender fluted columns on either 
 side of the battered white door were defaced and 
 grimy. The rooms on the lower floors were of 
 stately height, darkened about the ceilings by 
 heavy cornices, from which the gilding had 
 chipped and fallen, and where for years the dust 
 had heaped itself. The staircase curved with a 
 beautiful sweep, and the hand-rail kept as fine 
 a polish as though the careful eyes of the mis 
 tress, dead these fifty years, saw that the foot 
 man should do his duty to the mahogany ; the 
 ceaseless slip of hurrying hands accomplished 
 this, even as the stumble of rough feet had worn 
 the bare oak of the stairs down to the splintered 
 grain. The rooms were divided and subdivided, 
 except on the top floor; these, being smaller, 
 were let to lodgers. Paul Calkins and his wife 
 had three of them, and Paul s sign was on the 
 rise of the first step in the lower hall : * 
 
 P. CALKINS, 
 Signs. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 67 
 
 " We ve got to live," the artist had said sul 
 lenly, when he first brushed out Artist and wrote 
 Signs. After a while the signs became profit 
 able to a degree which warranted the lease of 
 the loft in the L, where a skylight in the roof, 
 running the length of the room, poured a flood 
 of light upon the wooden signs which he carved 
 and painted and sold to tobacconists. 
 
 "We ve got to live, and I can do these once 
 in a while when I m not painting," he said; and 
 when Annie answered calmly, "No, we don t 
 have to live, Paul. Paint, and never mind 
 living," he swore at her between his teeth, and 
 vowed he would never touch a brush again. He 
 had not kept his vow, yet most of his time went 
 to the signs. 
 
 "They pay," he explained briefly to the few 
 people who remembered him, and recalled his 
 strange and brilliant promise of ten years be 
 fore. Such visitors saw only the signs: the 
 Punchinellos holding boxes of cigars; the In 
 dians with bunches of tobacco leaves, figures 
 executed, it had to be admitted, in no slovenly 
 way, but with the fine precision of the man who 
 sees the bones and muscles beneath the skin. 
 Still, they were tobacco signs, and Paul Calkins 
 seemed to take pleasure in showing them as his 
 highest possibility. 
 
 A curtain hung across one end of the loft, 
 
68 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 and once a visitor, as much through carelessness 
 as curiosity, brushed it aside, but dropped it at 
 Calkins s oath, and his own start at what he 
 saw behind it. 
 
 "You paint, then still?" he said breath 
 lessly. 
 
 But Paul, white, and without a word, took 
 him by the shoulder and thrust him from the 
 room. Yes, he painted there, behind the cur 
 tain; but sometimes he did not go behind it 
 for months, and only then, perhaps, after pass 
 ing days and nights in sullen sin, in shame, or 
 indifference, or hopelessness. Then he would 
 paint for days, absorbed, aflame ! He said of 
 himself once that, after he had gotten his body 
 sober, he made his soul drunk. But at such 
 times Annie lifted her head and looked at him 
 as a woman looks at the high priest of her soul. 
 
 She made great plans of what would happen 
 when the Picture was done. The world should 
 see it, should be made better by it. It was a 
 comment on the solemn meaning of the painting 
 to her that she forgot to plan for Paul s fame in 
 relation to his work ; it was the Picture only. 
 
 And so these last two years had passed: in 
 the mean details of poverty; in the noisy elbow 
 ing of the life about them ; in the manufacture 
 of tobacconists signs; in sodden and debasing 
 weakness. But here and there, shining among 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 69 
 
 the weary vulgarity of it all, came days when 
 Paul drew back that curtain, and when he said 
 his da3mon came to him. 
 
 But Annie said that then he came to himself. 
 
 III. 
 
 It was in the spring when old Miss Sarah 
 said she must see Annie. "I think I am sick 
 for her," she said simply. "Will you write 
 and ask her if it is convenient, sister?" the 
 other three inquired. 
 
 But Sarah shook her head. "No; the last 
 two times we asked her that, she said it wasn t. 
 But I must see her; I must go." And she went. 
 
 The sisters packed a dozen dainty things into 
 the trunk for Annie. Miss Mary made a loaf 
 of cake that Annie had always liked. "Do you 
 remember how she used to tease for it ? Bless 
 her little heart ! " said Miss Mary. Nannie was 
 more practical; for weeks she had been crochet 
 ing a white worsted "cloud," and Sarah should 
 take it with her. Emily brought a big bunch 
 of apple blossoms, and begged Miss Sarah to 
 carry them in her hand. "Yes, I know they 11 
 be faded; but Annie won t mind. Tell her 
 they came from the tree by the strawberry bed. 
 How the child used to love to climb that tree ! 
 I was always afraid she d break her neck." 
 
70 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 The night before Miss Sarah went, Nannie 
 came into her bedroom with an anxious face. 
 "Sister," she said, "we ve never thought of 
 sending Paul anything ! " 
 
 The two ladies looked at each other in dismay. 
 Miss Sarah was standing by her bureau, tying 
 her nightcap under her chin, and she paused 
 with the bow between her fingers. "Oh, Nan 
 nie, that will never do ! Annie would feel it." 
 
 "I can t think of a thing," sighed Miss Nan 
 nie. 
 
 "A book? We might buy him a book. 
 Mary could send Betsey around to the station 
 er s while we re at breakfast." 
 
 But Miss Nannie was doubtful. "It does n t 
 seem like Paul a book." 
 
 "The only thing that does seem like him I 
 shouldn t want to carry," said Miss Sarah sig 
 nificantly. 
 
 "Oh, sister ! " said dear Miss Nannie. 
 
 Sarah looked contrite, but firm. 
 
 "I 11 tell you what occurred to me," said the 
 younger sister, hesitating ; " unless it would not 
 be quite delicate?" And then she opened her 
 hand and showed two eagles. "I got them at 
 the bank," she said. "You girls can each give 
 me five dollars if you want to, or else 1 11 give 
 it all to him myself. You just put it to him in 
 a way that won t offend him. Tell him it is so 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 71 
 
 hard to choose for a gentleman; and so we 
 ventured we hoped he would accept and 
 purchase something for himself. Ask him to 
 consider it our gift," she ended. 
 
 In the morning, what with the excitement of 
 a journey and the pleasant jingle in their minds 
 of their list of gifts, the sisters felt a glow of 
 happiness about Annie ; they had decided that 
 Sarah was to induce her to come back with her 
 and make a visit of a week. " And tell Paul we 
 hope he can come, too," said Miss Nannie; and 
 the others added, "Oh, of course." 
 
 And so Miss Sarah started. A sweet, timid 
 old lady, with gray hair coming down softly 
 upon her cheeks, and then looped back behind 
 her ears; her black wool dress was gathered 
 around the waist, and fell in modest fullness 
 about her gaitered feet; she wore a shawl, and 
 drawn on an elastic cord around the crown of 
 her bonnet, was an old-fashioned chantilly lace 
 veil, which fell in soft wings on either side her 
 face. She held the bunch of apple blossoms in 
 her lap, careful not to touch the stems any more 
 than she could help, both to keep them fresh 
 and to avoid staining her second best black kid 
 gloves, which were quite loose and wrinkled, but 
 still flat in the finger-tips, as though they had 
 never been entirely pulled on, and so very shiny 
 that they might almost have been mistaken for 
 her best pair. 
 
72 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 She was full of interest in her journey and in 
 the people about her. She spoke to a number 
 of women, and was sweetly unaware- of their 
 look of surprise, which, to be sure, always melted 
 into gratification. She took a fretting child 
 into the seat beside her, and gave him a spray 
 of Annie s apple blossoms, and then felt in her 
 pocket for some caraway-seed candy. The joy 
 of seeing Annie so soon, blurred the old clear 
 anxiety about Annie s happiness; she pictured 
 to herself a dozen times her sister s delight at 
 the surprise of the visit. "Bless her heart! " 
 said Miss Sarah to herself, "how glad the child 
 will be to see me ! " She knew Annie lived in 
 rooms : she had been told that it was the fashion 
 now among genteel persons to live in rooms, in 
 stead of having houses to themselves, and she 
 thought it must be quite convenient for Annie 
 to have her kitchen and parlor and dining-room 
 on the same floor, but she could not feel that it 
 was altogether pleasant to have one s bedroom 
 on a level with the kitchen. She said this to 
 one of the ladies with whom she had made ac 
 quaintance, but the lady seemed more surprised 
 at the locality of Annie s rooms than their 
 arrangements. "Why," she said, "I didn t 
 know there were any apartments down there ; I 
 thought all those old houses had been given up 
 to business." But Miss Sarah was not concerned 
 at that. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 73 
 
 " It is quite unpleasant the way business creeps 
 around old residences ; we have felt it very much 
 in Mercer. If we did not love our old house so 
 much, my sisters and I would be crowded out, 
 I suppose. But we are very much attached to 
 it. My sister Annie was born there." 
 
 It was la,te in the afternoon when she left the 
 train, and came out into a crowd of cabmen and 
 carriages and a surging tide of men and women. 
 She held her apple blossoms and her reticule in 
 a tremulous grip, and was pallid and dazed by 
 the rush of life about her. When at last she 
 found herself in the shelter of a carriage, she 
 leaned back against the cushions, and tried not 
 to see the whirl outside. She had a weak mo 
 ment of wishing that she had told Annie she 
 was coming, so that Paul could have met her at 
 the station. The cab jolted over cobble-stones 
 or rumbled across brief strips of asphalt, on 
 and on and on, until Miss Sarah wondered, in 
 sudden fright, whether she had left the train 
 too soon. " It would have been much quicker 
 to have come all this distance by rail," she said 
 to herself ; and still the carriage rattled along. 
 
 The streets grew narrower, the buildings less 
 imposing, with hints of having once been used 
 as dwellings. Here and there, marked sharply 
 with cheerful white lines between its bricks, a 
 red facade, keeping still its pillared doorway 
 
74 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 and leaded sidelights, showed itself unbroken by 
 the plate glass windows of a shop. It was in 
 front of such a house that the cab at last drew 
 up. The door stood open and disclosed the bare 
 hall ; the brass bell-knob was out of order, and, 
 dangling from a rusty wire, hung like a once 
 hospitable hand broken at the wrist. The iron 
 hand-rail, which curved into a wrought scroll, 
 and then lifted into a springing arch, was eaten 
 with rust, and broken here and there, and the 
 steps themselves were flaked and worn. The 
 street was quite still ; a belated shopkeeper on 
 the opposite side was drawing down a corru 
 gated iron shutter over a window full of musical 
 instruments ; a Chinaman came out of his laun 
 dry in the basement of this house which bore 
 the number Annie had said was hers and 
 stood, his hands hidden in his flowing purple 
 sleeves, staring at the lady in the cab with in 
 different Oriental eyes. 
 
 Miss Sarah looked blankly about; there must 
 be some mistake. There were second - hand 
 clothes in the window beside the front door, and 
 there was a swaying string of bird-cages hang 
 ing from a second-story sill, which bore the 
 sign "Wire Works." Annie couldn t live 
 here ! It must be the wrong street. In a panic 
 she summoned courage to speak to a "strange 
 man." With a little cough, she asked a boy, 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 75 
 
 who lounged smoking in the doorway, staring 
 vacantly at a dusty case of tintypes fastened on 
 the wall, if this was the street and number to 
 which she had directed the cabman? The boy, 
 with slow indifference, " guessed it was." And 
 Miss Sarah, tremulously polite, begged to know 
 if Mr. Calkins lived here. " How do I know?" 
 the boy said dully. "Why don t you look at 
 the steps?" 
 
 "Steps?" said Miss Sarah. He jerked his 
 thumb over his shoulder to show her the signs 
 on the rise of each step, and she saw that "P. 
 Calkins " was on the fifth floor. Other notices 
 invited her, a clairvoyant on the fourth floor, 
 hats re -pressed on the second, entreaties from 
 all the stragglers for existence hived beneath 
 this ancient roof. 
 
 Sarah Murray s heart sank. She had never, 
 in all the sweet quiet of living, come near 
 enough to Life to feel its aching throb and 
 pulse. The shadow of humanity began to 
 stretch across her peace; but it took the per 
 sonal expression; it was dismay that Annie 
 should be here ! As she climbed the bare, ill- 
 kept stairs, that curved with a stately sweep 
 up to the top of the house, she stopped once and 
 wiped her eyes, and then resolutely stuffed her 
 handkerchief into her reticule; Annie must not 
 see any tears ! 
 
76 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 Each floor had been divided and altered to 
 hold as many tenants as possible, and the hall 
 windows were shut into small rooms, so that the 
 passages were nearly dark. Miss Sarah s heart 
 seemed to beat up in her throat ; it came into 
 her mind that she might meet a drunken person 
 here, but she never thought of turning back. 
 If Annie lived here, Annie s sister must know 
 it; but her knees shook under her. She was 
 so exhausted when she reached the top of the 
 building that she had to stop and lean against 
 the wall to get her breath. There was a 
 ground-glass door beside her; she could hear 
 people talking in the room within. 
 
 "Oh, damn you! " said a man s voice, "can t 
 you be quiet? Your everlasting fuss is enough 
 to drive a man to hell. I shall go out, and I 
 shall do what I please with the money; if I 
 double it, you can take it or leave it. I don t 
 care." 
 
 "Oh, Paul, Paul!" 
 
 IV. 
 
 How long Miss Sarah waited, hiding in those 
 dark passages until Paul should go out, she did 
 not know; despair filled up the moments. Af 
 terwards, when Annie had made her as comfort 
 able as she could for the night, she covered her 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 77 
 
 face with her hands, and sat silently in the 
 dark ; she dared not sob, and to the old there 
 may not come the easy relief of tears. Paul 
 would be out late, Annie said, and she would 
 not let her sister sit up to see him. Miss 
 Sarah mutely did as she was bid. Yes, they 
 would talk the next day, she said; Annie would 
 listen in the morning to all the home news ; of 
 course that was better than talking to-night, 
 when the older sister was tired. Yes, yes, she 
 would go to bed and rest. She was afraid to 
 make a sound, lest Annie might hear her, for 
 she was in a little room, scarcely more than a 
 closet, opening from one which seemed to be 
 kitchen and dining-room and parlor in one. 
 She had had only a glimpse of her surroundings 
 by the light of the lamp Annie held, but they 
 told the story. 
 
 She did not sleep at all that night; all about 
 her beat the roar of a great city, but the clamor 
 in her own heart shut that out. She sat in 
 tense listening. After midnight the sound 
 came; the shuffling step, the stumbling voice. 
 Then the old sister wrung her hands in the 
 darkness. 
 
 Paul was "ill," Annie said, in the morning, 
 and so Miss Sarah did not see him until late in 
 the afternoon. He was very polite to her then, 
 and very tender to Annie, but he said little, 
 
78 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 only in a low voice, once or twice, to his wife, 
 looking at her with those poor hunted eyes 
 set in a beast s face. "Annie, I must paint 
 to-morrow, -- I must ; you won t let any one 
 bother me?" 
 
 Annie s face lit and flushed. "I want sister 
 to see what you are doing, Paul; may I take 
 her in some time to-morrow?" 
 
 "Any time you wish," he said humbly. 
 "Anything good in my work, Miss Murray, is 
 Annie s; it is Annie herself ! " 
 
 And Miss Murray said to herself, "He is a 
 hypocrite as well as an unkind person;" and 
 her face grew as cold as a very gentle face can. 
 She had brought out her gifts that morning, 
 except Nannie s. She could not give Paul those 
 two gold eagles. What! give Nannie s hardly 
 spared money to this drunken, cruel man, this 
 man who made Annie cry? No! "At least, 
 not yet," said Miss Sarah, despairingly aware 
 that she would soon have a change of heart; 
 Miss Sarah being one of those women who can 
 not long be angry, and who count such inability 
 the misfortune and the weakness which it is. 
 
 When Paul went into the loft to paint the 
 next morning, Annie talked a little about him 
 and about his work. Whether she knew that 
 Miss Sarah had discerned the signs of dissipa 
 tion and was silent concerning them, or whether 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 79 
 
 she really thought her sister ignorant of them, 
 Miss Sarah could not tell; there was no under 
 tone of misery in her voice, no self -consciousness 
 of mortification. Annie said frankly that they 
 were very poor ; she had not liked to trouble 
 the sisters by telling them about it, and she 
 trusted Miss Sarah not to let them feel uncom 
 fortable or to feel uncomfortable herself; "for 
 I am a happy woman, sister," she said. 
 
 She had been washing the dishes as she talked, 
 and she shook the tea towel out of its damp 
 wrinkles and hung it upon the door of the small 
 stove. The room was very bare : there was no 
 carpet or mat, and no display upon the walls of 
 shining copper, such as beautified Miss Mary s 
 domain at home. Only a well-scrubbed floor, 
 and a sill where there was a row of bright red 
 flower-pots, and a spotless window with a little 
 cross-barred muslin curtain flapping across it 
 and shutting out no pleasanter view than end 
 less flat roofs and great chimney-stacks and 
 iron-shuttered windows. 
 
 "We are fortunate to get these two little 
 rooms up here, with that tiny place you slept in. 
 That was Paul s studio at first, and then when 
 he began this this other work, we took the 
 loft at the back of the building; it is lighted 
 from the top." 
 
 Annie stood in a stream of sunshine beside 
 
80 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 her flowers ; she had been watering them, pick 
 ing off one or two dead leaves with a touch that 
 was a caress. "The leaves get so dusty," she 
 explained; "even up here, so high above the 
 street." 
 
 She hardly knew what she was saying; she 
 was groping about to find herself in relation to 
 her sister. She whose hands were worn with 
 work, whose eyes were heavy with many tears ; 
 she who knew the brawl of the streets, the look 
 of the saloon where she went for Paul ; she who 
 had grown sharp and shrewd, who bickered with 
 tobacconists on the price of an Indian or a God 
 dess of Liberty, and who had come to look dully, 
 almost without pain, at the vulgarity of a cheap 
 and noisy business life, what had she in com 
 mon with the delicate gentility of this old sister, 
 who sat sewing, putting small stitches into a bit 
 of fine cambric, or stroking the gathers with the 
 careful precision of infinite leisure? 
 
 But she tried to talk ; she told her sister that 
 Paul was engaged upon a very wonderful pic 
 ture. "He has been at work upon it for two 
 years," she said; "but he will only touch it 
 when he must. He dare not touch it unless he 
 is compelled. I mean when when he feels 
 just like it," she ended weakly. 
 
 "Yes, when he is in the mood," said Miss 
 Sarah, trying to understand. 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 81 
 
 u But of course he must earn some money; 
 so he carves makes figures for signs, you 
 know between times. It is n t his real work, 
 of course." 
 
 "Very sensible, I m sure," Miss Sarah re 
 plied, relieved to find something to commend. 
 
 "If he had not this reverence for his art," 
 Annie struggled on, "he would paint pictures, 
 just to sell them. But he won t do that. It 
 would seem desecration to Paul." 
 
 Miss Sarah knitted her brows anxiously. 
 "Desecration to sell his work, my dear? Why, 
 I thought doesn t he sell the signs?" 
 
 "Oh, they are nothing, the signs! They 
 have nothing to do with his art," Annie said 
 eagerly. "He goes to his painting as a priest 
 goes to the altar, sister; indeed, with more 
 reverence, for I ve known Paul not to touch 
 the Picture for three months, because he was 
 not summoned! " 
 
 Miss Sarah looked quite blank. 
 
 "I only mention this to explain the signs; 
 you 11 see them when we go in to look at the 
 Face." 
 
 "Is the picture a face?" said Miss Sarah, 
 thinking with a sinking of the heart of the pic 
 ture above the fireplace at home. 
 
 "Yes," Annie told her; "there is more than 
 that, but somehow I only think of the Face. I 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 won t tell you what it is; you must sea it for 
 yourself." 
 
 But, as it happened, she did not see it until 
 two or three days later. Paul never left the 
 Picture, and there was nothing said of taking 
 Miss Sarah into the loft while he was at work, 
 although she, anxious to be agreeable to her 
 brother-in-law, proposed that she and Annie 
 should go and sit with him while he painted. 
 She went out once or twice with Annie, bravely 
 ignoring the dreadful flights of stairs up which 
 she must climb to get home, and clinging to 
 her sister s arm at every crossing, with a fright 
 ened clutch that told how devoid of anything 
 like pleasure was the sight-seeing Annie pro 
 posed. She wrote home regularly, those 
 long, empty, affectionate letters which ladies like 
 Miss Sarah send to their families. She said 
 nothing of the weight that lay on her heart in 
 regard to Paul, she was eating his bread, and 
 she must not say what she thought of him ; only 
 that he was working "as though he was pos 
 sessed," and that without any consciousness of 
 the truth she may have touched in the words. 
 She spoke of Annie s plants, and how well her 
 Kenilworth ivy looked ; and how her wedding- 
 dress had been made over once, and then dyed ; 
 and, she added, it dyed a very good black. She 
 told Mary that Annie used a special kind of 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 83 
 
 oatmeal, and that she had enjoyed going to 
 market with her several times, and she observed 
 that the market was "quite different" from the 
 one in Mercer. She had pointed that difference 
 out to Annie, glad to have something interesting 
 to talk about. She talked a good deal about 
 Mercer, and of the vicissitudes and affairs of 
 different families; of Rev. Mr. Brown s loss of 
 his son, of Mrs. Brown s difficulties with ser 
 vants, for Annie would remember that Mrs. 
 Brown always had difficulties with servants. It 
 indicated poor Mrs. Brown s breeding that she 
 never kept her women more than a few months. 
 "Mamma always said that it reflected on the 
 family to change servants," said Miss Sarah. 
 
 If Annie did not listen, Miss Sarah did not 
 know it; it was her duty to talk, and to try 
 to be entertaining. Perhaps Annie, weary and 
 chafing sometimes under the soft flow of simple 
 gossip, never realized the pathetic effort of the 
 tender old aching heart to do her part, and "be 
 entertaining." 
 
 Annie, in the silence of her soul, was follow 
 ing her husband s brush; she crept in with his 
 food at noon, but she did not talk to him ; she 
 kept her glorying to herself ; she planned again 
 and again the scene when the revelation of Paul s 
 nature would come to her sister. She decided 
 to take her into the loft at noon ; the light then 
 
84 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 upon that uplifted, agonized, radiant Face was 
 best. Sarah must see it at its best. Then she 
 would understand ! Annie smiled and sighed 
 at once. She longed that her husband s self 
 should be recognized, and yet in the absence 
 of such recognition she had all the exultation 
 of the discoverer. She knew; she always had 
 known; when the long-delayed appreciation of 
 him should come, there would be joy and pride, 
 but there would also be a little contempt as well. 
 It must have been the third or fourth day that 
 Paul, at noon, came back across the hall, ex 
 hausted, pallid, but gentle, although remote and 
 vague. He would not work any more that day, 
 he told his wife, resting his hand upon her 
 shoulder, and looking at her with contented, 
 tired eyes. Annie silently took his hand and 
 kissed it. 
 
 "Go out, dear; go and take a good long walk; 
 you need it," she said; then they were silent 
 for a moment, looking at each other as though 
 they had forgotten Miss Sarah. 
 
 When he had gone, Annie turned eagerly to 
 her sister; "Now you shall see it !" she cried. 
 Her excitement brought the color into her 
 cheeks ; she looked young and happy. 
 
 When Annie opened the door of the loft, Miss 
 Sarah was quite startled by the company in 
 which she found herself. A half-dozen signs in 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 85 
 
 one stage of completion or another stood about 
 under the skylight; the sparkling day outside 
 fell in a long block of sunshine upon the floor, 
 and over it came and went gayly the shadow 
 from a flag on some higher building beyond. 
 There were pots of paint and some brushes near 
 the unfinished figure of an Indian, who had a 
 panther skin across his shoulder, and a quiver 
 on his back ; he wore moccasins and buckskins ; 
 there were feathers in his straight black hair, 
 and one sinewy hand shaded his keen eyes. 
 Miss Sarah did not know enough to realize the 
 remarkable excellence of the carving; but she 
 said it was lifelike. The figure of a ragged 
 colored boy holding out a box of cigars pleased 
 her more, because, she said, he was cunning; 
 and she liked a sailor with a bunch of tobacco 
 leaves in his hand. She took them all seriously. 
 She was truly relieved to be able to admire. 
 Annie waited impatiently for the examination 
 to end; but Miss Sarah was too interested to 
 be hurried. The room, low-roofed, with rafters 
 meeting in shadowy arches overhead, the paint- 
 pots, streaked and splashed with rich colors, the 
 strange lurking-places under the eaves for artists 
 properties, were all exciting to Miss Sarah. An 
 old black iron lantern swung against the chim 
 ney-breast, which was rough between its bricks 
 with ridges of plaster, on which the dust lay like 
 
86 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 gray feathers ; there was a small platform at one 
 side of the room, and on it was a chair of black 
 oak, rich with carving, and, Miss Sarah thought, 
 very uncomfortable ; but she was too polite tc 
 mention that ; and all about her were the tobacco 
 signs, standing in the oblong of sunshine, across 
 which came and went the shadow of the flag, or 
 over which a passing cloud cast a momentary 
 blur, like a breath upon a mirror. 
 
 A little more than half way down the room 
 hung the curtain, stretched from side to side. 
 Annie stood beside it, holding it in her eager 
 hand. "But, sister, this this is Paul! " Her 
 voice trembled; she was silent a moment, as one 
 may bow his head before entering a holy place. 
 Then she drew the curtain. 
 
 She looked at Miss Sarah, but she could not 
 speak. 
 
 The amiable effort to be interested died out 
 of Sarah Murray s face; it grew gently rever 
 ent. "Why, Annie f" she said, and was silent 
 a moment; then, in a voice that dropped uncon 
 sciously, "I didn t know that Paul ever painted 
 religious pictures, my dear?" 
 
 "Oh, don t you understand? Can t you un 
 derstand?" 
 
 Miss Sarah did not speak ; then she drew a 
 long breath, and seemed to rouse herself. She 
 took off her glasses, and went quite close to the 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 87 
 
 painting, which, on the unfinished plaster of the 
 wall, stretched all across the gable end; she 
 touched it in one place with mild, inquiring fin 
 ger. " Why, how real that is ! I really thought 
 it was sunshine. It s very strange, Annie, my 
 dear. And and nice, of course; though, I 
 must say, such pictures always seem to me a lit 
 tle like the Catholic Church. Just a little pop 
 ish, perhaps. Paul is not a Catholic, is he?" 
 This with a faintly troubled look. Annie shook 
 her head and turned away. There seemed to be 
 nothing to say. 
 
 "But I m glad he paints religious pictures, 
 Annie," Miss Sarah said, following her. She 
 was saying to herself that perhaps she had 
 misjudged Paul. If he could paint a religious 
 picture, why he must be religious, even though 
 he did not show it. 
 
 V. 
 
 The more Miss Sarah thought of the Picture, 
 the more perplexed she was ; but she was pleased, 
 and she made up her mind to give Paul the 
 money Nannie had sent him ; she felt she had 
 been severe in her judgment of him. "If he 
 paints religious topics, his conduct must be just 
 a way he has," she explained to herself. 
 
 "Why, Annie," she said, later in the day. 
 "I never even knew he went to church! I 
 
88 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 thought indeed I m very sorry, but I thought 
 he was an infidel! " 
 
 "He never does go to church," Annie an 
 swered, half smiling. Perhaps Sarah would 
 understand in her own way. But her face 
 was gray and tired ; it had been a great disap 
 pointment; the lonely joy of the discoverer is 
 not, perhaps, quite enough for the human heart. 
 
 Miss Sarah made haste to get Nannie s two 
 gold eagles out of her trunk, and brought them 
 to show to Annie, a little self-reproach tremu 
 lous in her eager, tender old voice. "I ought 
 to have given them to Paul before. Nannie 
 wants him to spend them in any way he wishes, 
 and call whatever he purchases a gift from her." 
 
 Annie opened her lips, and then closed them ; 
 then she said : " Dear sister, how kind you all 
 are to us! Paul will be so pleased at the 
 thought." She glanced at the money with a 
 half -frightened, apprehensive look, but she gave 
 no hint that she did not want Paul to have it, 
 because of her fear that he might spend it ill; 
 to protect him by such a confession would have 
 been an insolence to the real Paul. 
 
 Miss Sarah saw the change in her face. She 
 did not understand it, but the old resentment at 
 Annie s husband came easily back. The Pic 
 ture? "Well, after all, it s better to live your 
 religion than paint it," Miss Sarah reflected 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 89 
 
 grudgingly, and she decided that, for her part, 
 she believed that when artists and writers and 
 persons of that sort put their religion into their 
 work, there was apt to be very little of it left 
 for their lives. 
 
 The two women sat down in the room which 
 was used as a sitting-room as well as a kitchen, 
 and a little silence fell between them. Annie 
 could not put aside the fact that money coming 
 in this way, outside his earnings, an extra, 
 so to speak, would be a temptation to Paul. 
 He would argue that if he spent it for his own 
 diversion Annie knew what that meant they 
 would be no worse but possibly better off than 
 they were before. Annie smiled at the childish 
 ness of the excuse ; traits like these had devel 
 oped in her maternal love to add to that of the 
 wife for the husband. And yet she would not 
 treat him like a child, and offer to the man the 
 indignity of protection. She faced all the pos 
 sibilities, and, with wonderful, trembling cour 
 age, said to herself that she would not, by any 
 artifice or excuse, hold the money back. 
 
 When Paul came home, he was still vague 
 and abstracted. He had little to say ; but the 
 silence of a bad-tempered man is sometimes felt 
 to be tenderness by those poor souls that love 
 him. Miss Sarah said to herself that Paul was 
 "pleasant," and she tried to encourage his 
 
90 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 mood by telling him that Annie had taken her 
 into his work-room, and showed her Paul 
 began to frown "the Picture. And I think 
 it is a very nice picture, Paul. I never saw it 
 painted in just that way. It gave me quite a 
 different idea of " 
 
 "You are very good," he said abruptly. 
 "But please don t speak of it." 
 
 Annie touched the hand he had clinched upon 
 the table, a touch that said, "Be patient; she 
 does not understand." 
 
 How could she ? How should her simple old 
 heart guess that comment upon the painting was 
 like a touch upon an open eye ? that his Picture 
 was to this poor convict soul a vision of right 
 eousness, while he stood at judgment? He 
 could not bear her chatter. He listened to her 
 praise blackly, opening and shutting his hand, 
 and gnawing at his heavy red lip. Once or 
 twice he said, "You are very good, I m sure." 
 When she had said all she could, but reserved, 
 with a twinge of conscience, her fear that the 
 picture was popish, she ended by saying that 
 Nannie had sent him a little gift, and then pro 
 duced the two gold coins. 
 
 Paul took them, half smiling, and lifting his 
 black eyebrows. "I m afraid I ve been a 
 bear," he said. "Miss Nannie s very kind. 
 Annie, write to your sister, and tell her she s 
 very kind. Do you hear?" 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 91 
 
 "I hope you will get something you like, 
 Paul, and consider it Nannie s gift," Miss Sarah 
 said. 
 
 He clinked the money in his hand, and 
 laughed. "Annie, we might open a bank ac 
 count with this. I 11 tell you ! You shall have 
 a new dress, and another pot of posies for your 
 shelf. Will you like that? I will go and buy 
 them to-morrow. I have a fancy that a gray 
 dress, a silvery gray, with a sheen like water 
 on it, would be nice? What do you say? " 
 
 Miss Sarah was lost in admiration. She saw 
 herself writing home of Paul s generosity. 
 Annie protested that it would be pretty, but not 
 useful. Paul laughed, and tossed the eagles, 
 glittering, into the air, and caught them, and 
 stopped to examine the dates with a singular 
 intensity, and a satisfaction that made Miss 
 Sarah say that that was one nice thing about 
 gold, no matter how old a coin was, it always 
 seemed bright and clean. Annie looked at Paul 
 in silence. If only it would occur to him to 
 give her the money to keep ! He began to talk 
 gayly, and with animation growing in his face. 
 He said Annie ought to dress better than she 
 did, and that living in this poor way was a dis 
 grace. " A disgrace to me," he said. "I ought 
 to be doing better." 
 
 "We are doing very well, Paul." She tried 
 
92 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 to quiet him. "You have three orders ahead. 
 We must not try to get rich too fast," she ended, 
 trying to make her words light, and deeply, 
 pitifully significant, at once. 
 
 He laughed at the supper, and said that her 
 ring and water-cress and toast and tea were not 
 enough to support life. 
 
 Miss Sarah had never seen him in such an 
 agreeable mood; she felt that her praise had 
 brought this cheerfulness, and she tried to en 
 courage it, and also to encourage his desire for 
 something better. "Dissatisfaction is very 
 proper when a man s poverty is his own fault," 
 Miss Sarah thought, and she said aloud that she 
 thought a gray dress for Annie would be very 
 nice, although perhaps a good black silk would 
 be more serviceable. "It makes over so well," 
 said Miss Sarah. 
 
 "She shall have both," Paul answered, 
 promptly. 
 
 But his sister-in-law was disturbed at that, 
 for she felt sure that the quality of neither 
 would be very good. Still, as Emily would 
 have said, it showed a good spirit in Paul to 
 desire to spend his own present on his wife, 
 a spirit that matched the Picture, Miss Sarah 
 thought, much pleased. 
 
 She had never seen him in so good a light, 
 and she blamed herself for having been blind to 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 93 
 
 his merits before. "Not but what he has some 
 faults which we deplore," she wrote to her sis 
 ters; "but I feel we have been too severe in our 
 thought of Paul." She told them about the 
 Picture ; at least she said that she was pleased 
 that Paul should have turned his mind to serious 
 things. Then she spoke of his good intentions 
 about the money, and gave them quite an ac 
 count of the amiable way in which he had once 
 told her how fond Annie was of her flowers, and 
 how foolish; and how he liked to bring her a 
 growing plant once in a while, just because she 
 was such a goose about them. 
 
 "Did you ever see Annie wash the geranium 
 leaves?" he had said. "She takes each leaf in 
 her hand, and holds it, and washes it softly, 
 with a sponge, just as if it were a baby s little 
 palm. I believe she imagines they are children, 
 these vegetables, just as girls play that their 
 dolls are babies. She wouldn t have done it if 
 that young one of ours had lived!" He had 
 said this on the day which was the anniversary 
 of the baby s death. It had seemed to Miss 
 Sarah one of those careless cruelties of coinci 
 dence, and she had looked with quick apprehen 
 sion at Annie; but Annie s face showed nothing 
 but tenderness for a pain that was trying to hide 
 itself beneath such pitiful flippancy. 
 
94 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The next few days were happy ones to Miss 
 Sarah. Paul was "truly agreeable," she said 
 to herself, with that apprehensive appreciation 
 which is felt by persons whose misfortune it is 
 to live with an ill-tempered man or woman. 
 He was hard at work upon his signs again, which 
 pleased Miss Sarah greatly. "An industrious 
 person is not apt to get into mischief," she as 
 sured herself. His work upon his picture had 
 seemed to her too much of the nature of a pas 
 time. "It s as though I should spend my time 
 reading my Bible instead of looking after my 
 household," Miss Sarah reflected. "It s a 
 pious work, but it isn t an order; and to spend 
 much time upon it is idling, I m afraid." 
 
 So she was glad to go into the loft and watch 
 him as he sat toiling at one of his wooden fig 
 ures, and encourage him by any honest praise 
 which she could speak. Paul seemed pleased, 
 she thought, that she was so appreciative; he 
 certainly made an effort to induce her to express 
 her opinions. He said, with perfect gravity, 
 that he "enjoyed her conversation," and she 
 blushed at the compliment like a girl. 
 
 Miss Sarah was troubled that Annie showed 
 so little interest in the signs and in what Paul 
 said about them, and that made her all the more 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 95 
 
 anxious to encourage him. So each day while 
 he was at work she went into the loft, and 
 though she glanced sometimes at the curtain 
 across the farther gable, she confined her atten 
 tion to the figures, regarding them with that 
 timid respect which modest and ignorant persons 
 have for anything which they conceive to be art. 
 She was quite blind to the bad amusement in 
 Paul s face, or to the way in which he glanced 
 sidewise at Annie for appreciation of the humor 
 of the situation. He was almost hilarious in 
 his open ridicule, which the tender old heart 
 never suspected. 
 
 On one especial morning he told her that he 
 had planned a figure of America, which was to 
 hold the flag of the Union, as well as a box of 
 cigars ; but he said that he was not sure how the 
 flag ought to hang over the arm of the figure, 
 and he wondered whether Miss Sarah would be 
 willing to hold it for him a moment. Miss 
 Sarah flushed with the pleasure of being of use. 
 She stood, very erect and proud, while he draped 
 the flag across her arm, and let its folds fall upon 
 her straight black gown. She bent her mild 
 face down to look at it, so that the tabs of her 
 lace cap touched her faded cheeks; her eyes 
 dimmed a little, but she smiled. She said that 
 she knew what the flag meant better than An 
 nie and Paul did ; they probably could not re 
 member much of the war. 
 
96 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 "I feel very patriotic to be a flag-bearer," 
 said Miss Sarah, smiling at her little joke, and 
 sure of Paul s sympathy. 
 
 Annie cried out sharply, when she saw her 
 sister standing there among the images, her dear 
 old face beaming with gratification in being use 
 ful, and with honor for the symbol across her 
 arm. "Oh, Paul, don t! " she said. The glit 
 ter of cruel amusement in his eyes and Sarah s 
 sweet unconsciousness hurt her like a stab. "I 
 wish you wouldn t, Paul," she said faintly; 
 and then she went down the room, leaving her 
 husband and sister under the skylight, among 
 the tobacco signs, and touched the end of the 
 curtain, holding it in a quick, trembling grasp, 
 as one afraid, in the darkness, seizes the hand 
 of a friend. She never felt the need of that 
 assurance quite as she did when she saw Paul 
 cruel to Sarah. To have been cruel to herself 
 was nothing; a man s unkindness to his wife 
 may be only a lack of thought of himself. When 
 she went back to the artist and his model, her 
 face was pale, and she breathed as one who has 
 struggled, but there was courage in her eyes. 
 
 "You must n t do this to Sarah, Paul," she 
 said; and in spite of her sister s protest, she 
 took the flag away. "You are tired, dear sister; 
 it s very tiring to pose. Come; let us go back 
 to our work." 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 97 
 
 But Paul said quickly: "There! Annie! 
 Don t move; you ve put your hand just as I 
 want it for that America. Hold it so a minute, 
 will you? Miss Sarah, hand me that charcoal 
 and drawing-board. There ! behind you ! Oh, 
 damn! not that. Have you no eyes? There, 
 Annie; keep it just that way." 
 
 Miss Sarah, flustered and appalled, stood be 
 side her sister, uncertain what to do or say. 
 Annie smiled. "When Paul wants to draw, 
 sister, he forgets his manners. He 11 be through 
 in a minute, and then we ll go back to our 
 work." 
 
 Paul was not disturbed by the explanation. 
 He drew rapidly for a minute, in bold, vigorous 
 strokes, and then he stopped, holding his char 
 coal poised and frowning to himself, and rose, 
 and adjusted Annie s fingers. As he did it his 
 face changed, and the intent look faded. "Oh, 
 Annie! your little fingers," he said; he put his 
 own hand upon his lips, because they quivered 
 like a woman s, and then he took hers and laid 
 it against his breast, fondling it, and saying: 
 "Oh, Annie, Annie, your hand stabs me; it 
 stabs me ! How worn it is ! how thin it is ! 
 Annie, it stabs me!" And then he kissed it 
 passionately. 
 
 The love and pity in her face seemed to reach 
 out to the poor soul struggling to escape from 
 
98 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 the prison of his temperament, seemed to touch 
 and grasp him like two strong, welcoming, com 
 pelling hands. It was as though Patience and 
 Certainty comforted him. 
 
 As for Miss Sarah, she had not waited to 
 hear Annie s answer. She held her head very 
 straight, though she felt her knees tremble as 
 she walked away. Paul had sworn at her ! A 
 fine indignation lighted her old face. "That 
 person, to use such words in our presence !" 
 she thought. She went back to the other room, 
 and took up her bit of sewing; but her needle 
 glanced and slipped, her fingers were so un 
 steady. 
 
 Paul had the grace to apologize when he came 
 to tea, and Miss Sarah, immediately, and with 
 dismay, perceived her anger melting into for 
 giveness. But that night she lay awake a long 
 time, trying to understand him. How rude and 
 cruel he was ; how bad his temper ; how dissi 
 pated and profane he seemed to be. But over 
 and over the Picture contradicted these things 
 in her mind, "a reUf/ious picture," she said 
 to herself. 
 
 Miss Sarah might not guess all that Paul had 
 painted into that Face upon the wall, might not 
 feel that his soul was there, his sin, his shame, 
 his everlasting hope, all that makes religion to 
 the man ; but the subject told her that it was a 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 99 
 
 religious picture. In her own way, using sim 
 ple & words, with deep and dear old-fashioned 
 terms, such as, "Has he ever had a change of 
 heart? " "Has he really come to his Saviour? " 
 she questioned the mysteries of a human soul. 
 
 She could not sleep, but lay listening for his 
 step with an ache of apprehension. But when 
 he came in, about midnight, he walked steadily, 
 and she heard him say to Annie: "The luck s 
 come; it s come! It will be all right now; 
 everything will be all right. Don t worry, An 
 nie." And Miss Sarah s fear relaxed into tired 
 
 sleep. 
 
 The next day he showed a new side of his 
 character to his sister-in-law, a light, sweet- 
 tempered gayety, full of small passionate ten 
 dernesses to Annie and simple kindliness to 
 Miss Sarah herself. Annie was silent, almost 
 to moodiness ; she did not seem interested in his 
 continued assertions that he meant to bring her 
 a present. Miss Sarah could not understand 
 her. She made brave efforts to rouse her sister 
 to her duty by herself showing sympathy in all 
 Paul said, and by one or two mild, reproachful 
 glances at Annie. 
 
 "You bought Annie s present," she said, 
 when he came home to supper. "That s very 
 kind in you. You 11 be so pleased, won t you, 
 Annie, my dear?" 
 
100 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 "You shall see it after tea," he promised her. 
 "Annie, try and eat. Do eat this; I got it for 
 you." 
 
 But Annie shook her head, and Miss Sarah 
 felt really quite displeased with her. 
 
 After supper Paul brought out a package and 
 opened it. "Annie, do look; please look," he 
 said. "I chose it for you. I thought you d 
 look so pretty in it." 
 
 He shook out the gray folds, cool as moon 
 light upon dark ice, and shimmering in the 
 lamplight with soft and beautiful sheen. 
 
 "I bought it out of the two eagles," he said 
 significantly. "I assure you I did. I mean I 
 used just that amount, and I have more left. 
 Miss Sarah, Miss Nannie s present has grown 
 like the five talents. I I invested it, and 
 more than doubled it ; a good deal more ! Now 
 I m going to give almost all of it to you, and 
 get you to go out and buy some things for 
 Annie. She won t do it herself." 
 
 Miss Sarah s quick delight could scarcely 
 find words. "I ve always said gentlemen un 
 derstood managing money so much better than 
 ladies. Just fancy, dear Annie, doubled it ! 
 Annie, my dear, you should not be so dull 
 when your husband has been successful. Pray 
 tell me how you did it, Paul. I almost think 
 I should like to do something of the kind with 
 
THE FACE OJT THE WALL 
 
 our money; except, of course, situated as we 
 are, we can have only the safest and most con 
 servative investments. And our money is all 
 in trust, too, as you know." 
 
 Annie had gone into her bedroom for some 
 thing, and did not hear Paul s explanation that 
 he had doubled his money on a principle often 
 used by churches. He would tell her about it 
 some time, he said; and the laughter kindled 
 again in his eyes, but died when Annie came 
 back. Then he lifted the silk and held the soft 
 gray folds up in this light and that, and called 
 on them for admiration, which Miss Sarah gave 
 unstintingly, glad to put aside for a moment a 
 misgiving that those words about "doubling" 
 his money began, as she thought them over, to 
 arouse. 
 
 Paul laid the silk across Annie s shoulder, 
 arranging it so that it fell straight and _ gleam 
 ing to the floor. She stood sidewise, her dark 
 head drooping on her breast ; the long shining 
 line of the silk, from the nape of her neck to 
 her finger-tips and back to her heel, was full 
 of stately grace. Her husband looked at her 
 keenly, with the pleasure of the artist in what 
 is beautiful; not the more human pleasure of 
 appreciative affection. Perhaps that was why 
 he saw the war between the soft shimmer of the 
 gray silk and Annie s worn complexion, and 
 
T.HE I- tCE: ON THE WALL. 
 
 said: "Annie, where s your color? You re 
 too old for gray ! " 
 
 The little period of prosperity lasted nearly 
 a week. Paul did not work upon tlie signs, and 
 no mention was ever made of the Picture. He 
 went out early in the morning, and came back 
 at supper-time; he was sober, but with a curi 
 ous gayety about him, and the wandering, smil 
 ing eye which belongs to the man who drinks 
 not quite enough to lose his head. Sometimes 
 he offered Annie money, which she with sad 
 patience refused. Once she said, "You know 
 I won t have any part in it, Paul." 
 
 Miss Sarah wondered a little at Paul s for 
 bearance, for she had waited a cpivering instant 
 for an outburst, and none had come. He had 
 not met Annie s eye when she answered him ; 
 the strange vulgarity of his temper seemed 
 cowed. He had the look of cringing away from 
 a lash that never fell. Yet all the while he was 
 elate and triumphant, as though a secret which 
 he would not share filled him with self -congratu 
 lation. Miss Sarah, puzzling over the change 
 in Annie, suddenly remembered, with a start 
 of dismay, that speech about "doubling the 
 money; " could it be that Paul gambled? 
 
 At first this solution of the puzzle was too 
 terrible to contemplate, but little by little she 
 had to meet it and accept it. Then her one 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 103 
 
 thought was to get away. How could she eat 
 his bread ? How could she sleep under his roof ? 
 For a little while she had the strange experience 
 of thinking of Annie, not as her child and sis 
 ter, but as Paul s wife, and feeling a certain 
 repulsion for them both. But this, of course, 
 did not last. She could have nothing but ten 
 derness for her child ; only she must go home ! 
 She would go on Saturday, she said, though that 
 was a week earlier than she had planned to 
 return to Mercer. Her dismay was so absorb 
 ing that she did not notice that Annie made no 
 
 o 
 
 effort to induce her to remain. 
 
 But Miss Sarah had to admit that, as she drew 
 away from him, Paul grew more agreeable. He 
 was very gentle to Annie, gentler than at any 
 time during this unhappy visit. He bought 
 her a bottle of wine because she looked so pale, 
 and half promised that he would take her to 
 Mercer for August. 
 
 "Traveling costs, but money s no object," 
 he said. "We can afford it better now than 
 at any time since we ve been married, thanks 
 to Miss Nannie." 
 
 But by Wednesday this mood had passed. 
 He was distrait, and plainly full of anxiety. 
 "It s got to turn," he told Annie; "it s got 
 to. You 11 have to give me what money you 
 have. If you don t, I 11 borrow it from your 
 
104 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 sister. Don t talk! don t talk! It s done; 
 what s the use of talking? " They were in the 
 loft, and Annie gave an apprehensive glance at 
 the door, lest Miss Sarah, with her persistent 
 sympathy, should chance to enter. "A man 
 will come for the signs," Paul went on. "Yes, 
 I lost them; I lost them. Don t look at me 
 that way ! I 11 get them again. Have you 
 any money? " 
 
 " Only this, Paul ; and I must keep it. Oh, 
 don t take it ! Oh, how can I bear it? Paul, 
 I don t see how I can bear it ! " 
 
 He took the money roughly, and then came 
 back to her where she stood, her hands over her 
 face, beside the figure of the sailor. There was 
 no sound for a moment but her broken breath 
 and the pattering of the rain on the long sky 
 light in the roof; the afternoon had darkened, 
 and in the half-light of the dusky room the 
 wooden figures seemed to smile at each other 
 with their painted eyes. 
 
 "I can t help it, Annie," he said miserably; 
 " I can t help it ! My God, don t you see, it is 
 I? I can t help it. And you ll have your 
 quarterly allowance next week; but I 11 have 
 this and more back by to-night. And this shall 
 be the last time. I tell you it shall be the last 
 time. Annie, we 11 go away then ; just let me 
 get enough back to pay for moving. And I 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 105 
 
 must get these signs again. I ve got to take 
 your little money so as to get the signs; don t 
 you see? Annie ! Annie ! Oh, my God ! why 
 am I alive?" 
 
 VII. 
 
 "Paul is late, Annie?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Shall you keep his supper warm for him 
 any longer, my dear?" 
 
 "No; at least, I don t know. Perhaps I d 
 better. What time is it? " 
 
 Annie s restlessness brought a spot of color 
 into her cheek; her breath came quickly; a 
 dozen times she opened the door into the entry 
 and listened. 
 
 All the day before Paul had been away, com 
 ing home at dusk for an hour, his face feverish 
 with anxiety; again, to-day, he started out 
 early in the morning, and now it was after ten 
 and he had not returned. 
 
 "But ten o clock is really not very late 
 for a man, my dear," Miss Sarah assured her 
 sister. She could not understand Annie s anxi 
 ety, which was painfully evident ; and not un 
 derstanding it, she felt rebuffed and shut out. 
 But she was too pitiful to be hurt, and too 
 ignorantly trustful to realize how entirely a 
 stranger to her was this harassed and haggard 
 
106 THE FACE CLY THE WALL. 
 
 woman who, with eyes full of the terrible in 
 difference of pain, was mechanically answering 
 all her little questions and comments. But 
 Annie realized it. The effort of these past 
 few weeks to be all that was sweet and dutiful 
 to the sister who had taken her mother s place, 
 had suddenly betrayed itself to her as an effort. 
 She looked at Sarah once or twice, wondering 
 dully whether her sister saw how easily the 
 form of affection, the habit of the old life, 
 slipped off when a reality claimed her. She 
 had that terrible experience of gazing at the 
 familiar face opposite her, and realizing that, 
 despite endearing terms, despite a sacred past, 
 she and it were strangers. 
 
 O 
 
 She wished passionately to be alone. While 
 Miss Sarah sat sewing by the lamp, comment 
 ing now and then on this or that bit of news in 
 the evening paper, looking at her with a dis 
 tressed pity, sighing, even, her dear old face 
 tremulous with love, Annie could not give way 
 to her anxiety. Once she began to pace up 
 and down the two rooms, but Miss Sarah s en 
 treaties that she should sit down and rest were 
 harder to bear than her own restlessness. Af 
 ter eleven her sister s presence grew intolerable. 
 
 "You are going to travel to-morrow, sister, 
 so you really must go to bed now. I 11 tell 
 Paul you wanted to sit up and say good-night, 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 107 
 
 but I wouldn t let you. Oh, go go! Oh 
 I I didn t mean to be impatient, but you 
 must not sit up any longer." 
 
 Miss Sarah protested, but went. It seemed 
 strange to her that Annie preferred to be alone 
 when she could have company. 
 
 "I hope she knows I d have gone into my 
 room, so as not to see him, if if he was over 
 come," she thought, a little hurt at Annie s ap 
 parent distrust of her delicacy. She went to bed, 
 but she could not sleep ; she lay there with an ache 
 of pity in her heart that trembled into prayer. 
 She said to herself those words that some time 
 or other falter on every human lip, " The 
 Lord s providences are very mysterious!" and 
 then the questioning wonder: Why had He 
 not taken Paul, instead of that precious baby? 
 How happy they would have been by this time 
 if He had but seen fit to do what human wis 
 dom so plainly approved. Annie would have 
 come home to live, and by and by she would 
 have grown resigned ; and how the sisters would 
 have loved the child ! " And we would have 
 brought it up so carefully," sighed Miss Sa 
 rah. But instead, Paul had lived, had lived 
 to break Annie s heart by his drinking and 
 his gambling and his rude temper. She said 
 to herself that even though it was terrible to 
 go and leave Annie with him, she could not 
 
108 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 help feeling the relief of getting out of his 
 house. "His food chokes me !" she thought, 
 violently. She could hear Annie pacing up 
 and down, and called out to her once to go and 
 rest ; but Annie answered that she was just 
 going to open the door a moment and listen; 
 she thought Paul must be home soon. She did 
 listen ; she went out into the hall, and, leaning 
 on the balustrade, looked down the spiral of the 
 staircase. A window closed with a clatter on 
 the floor below her; the wind sighed somewhere; 
 down in the lower hall there was a noisy burst 
 of laughter and a good-natured scuffle. The 
 gas jet, from a thin iron arm that crooked out 
 of the whitewashed wall where the stairs curved, 
 flared in some mounting draught. 
 
 Annie, listening, leaned her head against the 
 wall. She wondered if in all these years the 
 old house had held a pain like her pain. Most 
 people have this thought once in their lives, at 
 least. The house was a hundred years old, she 
 had been told; time enough for Sorrow to have 
 gone up and down these stairs many times. She 
 wondered if any other woman had leaned her 
 head against the wall, dumb with pain. Death 
 had stricken human love here many times, but 
 what was death? She wondered how it would 
 seem to her if Paul died? She would feel his 
 freedom from the fetter of his temperament,- 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 109 
 
 feel it like a full breath ! And then she started, 
 with that curious misgiving that is a sort of 
 superstition, the fear of her own thoughts. 
 She went back to look at the clock. It was 
 after one. A little later, Miss Sarah, dozing, 
 heard a noise, and started up, crying out to 
 know what was the matter. 
 
 "I am a little worried about Paul. I am 
 going out to meet him. There s nothing the 
 matter, but I must go and meet him." 
 
 "Go out! " said Miss Sarah, standing in her 
 doorway, a gaunt, anxious apparition, "Annie, 
 my child ! at this time of night? Why, what 
 are you thinking of?" 
 
 "I ll be back soon, I ll be back soon," she 
 said mechanically. She was putting on her 
 bonnet with intent haste. 
 
 "Oh, Annie, Paul would not wish it. At 
 night, you on the street! My dear, I must 
 go with you. I cannot allow Paul would 
 never forgive Why, Annie, it s nearly 
 two, my dear ! " 
 
 " Sister, if he comes in, be sure not to let him 
 go out again." 
 
 "Annie, Annie, come back!" Miss Sarah 
 called, in quavering remonstrance. But Annie 
 had gone. 
 
 Miss Sarah could do nothing but look down 
 the stairs after her, and then go back to her 
 
110 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 room. She sighed, and the tears stung in her 
 eyes. She was very much frightened, but not 
 so much so as she might have been had she not 
 taken literally Annie s words that she was going 
 to meet Paul. She thought that meant that 
 Annie knew just where to find him, and that 
 they would return together immediately. Still 
 she was greatly disturbed. Annie was out, at 
 night, alone, alarmed about her husband ! 
 Annie, her child, whom she had guarded and 
 loved so tenderly that she would not have had 
 her know that such pain could be in life ! She 
 wondered how she could ever tell the girls the 
 truth about Paul. How could she tell them of 
 his dissipation, of the way in which Nannie s 
 money had gone? Sitting here alone in the 
 kitchen, her resentment burned too hot for 
 tears. After a while she tried to read, for her 
 eyes were growing heavy, and she must not be 
 asleep in case Annie, by any chance, should 
 come in before Paul; but the letters ran to 
 gether in a mist. "Dear me! this will never 
 do," said Miss Sarah; and got up, and began 
 to move about the room, but stopped, thinking 
 she heard Annie s step. There was the heavy 
 roll of a carriage in the street, and then the 
 clock struck two; but the house was silent. 
 Every moment she fancied she must hear them 
 coming upstairs together. She was a little 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. Ill 
 
 chilly, a little nervous here alone. The weight 
 of grief for Annie s grief oppressed her too 
 much even for prayer. She would let her eyes 
 close for just a moment, she thought. 
 
 She did not know how long she had been 
 asleep when there came a leaping step upon the 
 stairs, a run through the entry, and then the 
 door opened with a burst, and Paul leaned, 
 gasping, upon the knob. 
 "Annie?" 
 
 Miss Sarah, her eyes blurred with sleep, 
 stammered something. 
 
 Then he groaned aloud and threw up his 
 hands. " Tell her I lost it. But I stabbed 
 him : he shall not have it ! Tell her I loved 
 her. Tell her tell her there s only this one 
 thing I can do. Oh, she 11 understand - 
 she 11 understand " He stopped with a curi 
 ous cry, and turned and ran, crouching, across 
 the entry to the loft. 
 
 Sarah Murray stood staring at the open door, 
 seeing her own shadow nicker on the wall, hear 
 ing down in the street a song trailing into si 
 lence, as some light-hearted reveler went on 
 into the night. 
 
 "Paul has stabbed some one? Paul? An 
 nie s husband has" She did not under 
 stand ; she was faint for a moment. What did 
 it mean? " He has lost it. What? He has 
 
112 THE FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 been gambling again ! " In the whirl of con 
 fusion she never thought of the Picture; only 
 one word stood out clearly. Paul had stabbed 
 some one. 
 
 Then her strength came to her, and she went 
 out, across to the loft door, and knocked, and 
 said : " Paul I don t understand. Paul ! " 
 
 But there was no answer, and in a panic she 
 fled back again, and even locked the door, in 
 sudden, unnamed terror. But she sat beside 
 it to be ready to slip the bolt for Annie. She 
 had not long to wait. 
 
 Miss Sarah never knew how she said what 
 she had to say, with what terror and loathing 
 she repeated Paul s words to his wife, Annie 
 standing, just as Paul had stood, clinging to the 
 door-knob, gazing at her in wide-eyed silence. 
 Few words, each falling on the heart like a drop 
 of anguish. As she spoke, she tried with trem 
 bling old hands to lead her sister into the room, 
 but Annie broke away without a word. Sarah 
 followed her, and then stopped , and went back 
 and hid her face. But that was only for a mo 
 ment. 
 
 The entry was dark, save for the blue flare 
 of the gas that made a nimbus of light around 
 Annie, kneeling against the loft door. When 
 Miss Sarah, sobbing, knelt down beside her, 
 Annie did not seem to see her, 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 113 
 
 "Paul, I am here. Paul! Tell me the 
 truth." 
 
 Miss Sarah could not hear his answer, but 
 Annie heard it. 
 
 There was silence ior the space of a heart 
 beat, and then Annie lifted herself, crying to 
 him hoarsely to let her come in. "Oh, Paul, 
 I love you let me come in. I love you I 
 love you Paul, let me come in. I didn t 
 doubt. Only I I couldn t breathe for a 
 moment. Let me in, Paul ! " But there was 
 no sound. "Paul, Paul, I love you. Only 
 for an instant I could not speak. I love you. 
 Let me come in ! " 
 
 But he did not answer. Sarah called to him 
 once, for God s sake, to speak to Annie; but 
 there was silence. 
 
 How still the city seemed in that breathless 
 hour before daybreak ! The white cold dawn 
 brought a sigh from the sleeping streets. A 
 wandering sound crept now and then through 
 the house. A door opened and closed; and 
 then everything was still again. 
 
 Pauljiad spoken twice. Miss Sarah did not 
 come near enough to hear that terrible confi- 
 
 O 
 
 deuce between husband and wife. After it, 
 Annie did not cry out to be allowed to enter; 
 she only spoke to him sometimes, gently, with 
 ineffable tenderness, in some soft caress of 
 
114 TI1E FACE ON THE WALL. 
 
 words, as a mother speaks to a child. They 
 heard him move away from the door once, and 
 then came a strange sound, as of canvas be 
 ing cut or torn. And Paul s wife lifted her 
 face with terrible assent aijd understanding. 
 
 A little after dawn the- men came to take him. 
 Annie stood up, her arm across the door, the 
 other hand entreating the officers to pause. 
 
 "Paul, let me in first!" she called once, 
 with an agonized voice. There was no answer. 
 
 O 
 
 Then she moved aside to let one of the officers 
 put his shoulder against the door, which bent 
 and quivered, but held, and then crashed in. 
 
 Then she touched the man on the arm. 
 "Wait. I must go first. There is no other 
 door than this. Wait." She seemed uncon 
 scious that they followed her into the room, and 
 then paused, huddled in a startled group in the 
 doorway. There was no need for them to guard 
 against his possible escape. 
 
 There was no sound. The dawn lay white 
 under the skylight, upon the motley fig 
 ures ; upon a candle, still burning with a pallid 
 flame ; upon the long heap of the fallen curtain, 
 and upon the defaced and ruined Picture on the 
 wall. The men bared their heads, and one 
 looked away, and another swore, and one turned 
 faint. They watched her as she knelt down 
 and took him in her arms. "Yes, yes, I un- 
 
THE FACE ON THE WALL. 115 
 
 derstand," she seemed to assure the still face. 
 And then she lifted her own, shining with a sol 
 emn elation, and looked at the place where the 
 Picture had been. Her justification spurned 
 words. His mute lips told of the warfare of 
 his soul against his body; the ruin on the wall 
 said divine things. She had no need to speak. 
 And cradling the poor dishonored head upon 
 her breast, she kissed his lips. 
 
 And then content made reverent way for 
 grief. 
 
ELIZABETH. 
 
 I. 
 
 MR. THOMAS SAYRE had a very disagreeable 
 moment when he learned that his mother had 
 chosen to rent to an artist the top floor of her 
 old house in Bulfinch Court. 
 
 "You had no business to let her do such a 
 thing, without first telling me," he said sharply 
 to his sister. "Mother only had to speak, and 
 I d have given her all the money she wanted." 
 
 "But mother never would speak, you know, 
 Tom," Elizabeth Sayre answered gently; "and 
 it scarcely seemed necessary, either, for you 
 knew exactly how much her income was lessened 
 when the bank failed." 
 
 "Well, suppose I did? I didn t think I 
 mean, I didn t realize" He paused. His 
 sister did not reply, but her silence was signifi 
 cant. "You ought to have reminded me," he 
 ended sullenly. 
 
 And indeed there was some excuse for his 
 annoyance. He had come home on his first 
 visit, after an absence of several years abroad, 
 
ELIZABETH. 117 
 
 bringing with him his pretty daughter Fanny, 
 and anxious to give his mother some of the over 
 flowing satisfaction of his own life ; and, as he 
 told his wife afterward, "this lodger, this artist 
 fellow, met me in the hall, and was going to 
 do the honors of the house ! A lodger showing 1 
 
 O O 
 
 me into my own home, if you please ! Mother 
 had not had my dispatch, and so was not look 
 ing for me." 
 
 He had scarcely waited for his mother s kiss 
 before he asked the meaning of the stranger s 
 presence ; and then he stored up the vials of his 
 wrath, to pour them upon his sister s head, 
 when, later in the evening, they should be alone. 
 
 "Well," he said, after an uncomfortable 
 pause, "it s lucky I m here now and can put 
 a stop to it. How long has it been going on? " 
 
 "Mr. Hamilton has been here four years" 
 
 "He wouldn t be here four minutes," Mr. 
 Sayre interposed viciously, "if I could have 
 my way. But I suppose I can t turn him out 
 without some notice. Well, I 11 arrange it. 
 I 11 see him the first thing in the morning. 
 
 o o 
 
 Oh, I ll be civil to him, Lizzie; you needn t 
 be worried. Keally, I don t blame the man ; I 
 blame you. My mother s house turned into a 
 lodging-house it s outrageous to think that 
 neither you nor aunt Susan wrote me about it ! " 
 He glanced around the room with indignant 
 
118 ELIZABETH. 
 
 pride. The suggestion of a lodger did seem 
 out of place. And yet, could Mr. Sayre have 
 known it, the greater number of the houses on 
 Bulfinch Court had gradually fallen to such 
 cheap ends. They kept their dignity, however, 
 in spite of their changed fortunes; and they 
 had that air of accommodating themselves to 
 circumstances with calm indifference, which is 
 as characteristic of houses with a past as it is 
 of people. Possibly these old residences not 
 only endured, but were even a trifle amused at 
 the changing human life which came and went 
 through their wide halls, and below the carved 
 white lintels of the front doors. 
 
 Admiral Bent s house, just opposite the 
 Sayres , sheltered dapper young clerks now in 
 its hall bedrooms; there were dressmakers on 
 the ground floor, and some teachers two flights 
 up. In the admiral s time, the manners and 
 people were different, but possibly not so inter 
 esting. A little further down on that side of 
 the Court was a house once made reverend by 
 the name of "parsonage." When the clergy 
 man died, his heirs let it to a pretty widow 
 with two flaxen-haired children and a dog; and 
 now the tw r o or three old families left in the 
 Court looked at the house doubtfully, and said 
 they wished they knew something about the 
 inmates ; but none of them took the trouble to 
 
ELIZABETH. 119 
 
 learn anything about them by calling. The 
 heirs, however, found that in spite of rumors, 
 the rent was paid promptly, so they had no 
 reason to complain. The whole neighborhood 
 had run down. Mr. Thomas Sayre pointed 
 that out to his father a dozen years ago, but old 
 Mr. Sayre shook his white head. 
 
 "Your mother doesn t find fault," he said. 
 
 Nor did she. Her husband found his happi 
 ness here ; he loved every brick in the house, 
 every tree on the sidewalk; the whole Court 
 was full of small landmarks of association with 
 his past ; so, as he said, his wife found no fault, 
 for his happiness was hers ; the quiet of the 
 forsaken old Court was a trial to her cheerful 
 heart, and she did resent the behavior of the 
 children who came up out of the alley to play 
 in the plot of grass in the middle of the square ; 
 they dropped orange skins about, and stared 
 rudely at the occasional passer-by, or followed 
 in solemn and ecstatic procession the ubiqui 
 tous organ - grinder in his daily tour up one 
 side of the Court and down the other. But 
 William loved it all, and so, she said to her 
 self, "it was of no consequence." Afterward, 
 when William had been taken away from her, 
 all these small annoyances grew to have a cer 
 tain beauty of their own; a deep and tender 
 sacredness, about which she spoke to her daugh- 
 
120 ELIZABETH. 
 
 ter, and her husband s sister, Susan, with the 
 simplicity of a child; a characteristic which 
 neither of her listeners shared, and scarcely un 
 derstood. 
 
 Her son understood her better; yet even he 
 did not see that, with all the frankness of a 
 sweet old age, she would hesitate to tell him 
 that it had become necessary to take a lodger 
 at No. 16. A mother often feels that a child 
 should have the intuitive knowledge which be 
 longs to a parent, and it seemed to Mrs. Sayre, 
 although she did not put it into words even to 
 herself, that Thomas, if he stopped to think, 
 would be aware of her needs; but of course, 
 being his mother, she found immediate excuse 
 that he did not stop to think. She had been 
 careful, during the four years that Mr. Hamil 
 ton had been an inmate of her house, to avoid 
 mentioning his name in her letters to her son ; 
 so now, on this his first visit home, as he 
 walked up and down the sitting-room, scold 
 ing his sister to express his self-reproach, Mr. 
 Thomas Sayre had many things to learn. 
 
 "Yes, it s outrageous, Lizzie, that neither 
 you nor aunt Susan wrote to me about it," he 
 repeated crossly. "But I 11 put an end to it, 
 now I ve found it out for myself. I 11 give 
 the fellow notice to-morrow ! " 
 
 Elizabeth Say re s face hardened. It was a 
 
ELIZABETH. 121 
 
 delicate face, and fine ; with sensitive lips, and 
 brown, calm eyes shining from under dark 
 brows; the straight, dark hair was parted in 
 the middle, over a tranquil forehead, and then 
 brushed smoothly down behind her ears; it 
 was a face in which sweetness was hidden by 
 determination, but the sweetness was there. 
 
 "No," she said quietly. "Mr. Hamilton 
 will remain here as long as he wishes. Mother 
 would be very sorry to have him go." 
 
 Her brother, his hands in his pockets, turned 
 and looked at her. 
 
 "Ah? " he said. The significance in his tone 
 was unmistakable. Elizabeth flushed like a 
 rose, but she looked at him with clear, direct 
 eyes. 
 
 " / should be sorry to have him go, too. He 
 is a very unhappy and lonely man, and if we 
 can cheer him, and make his life brighter, we 
 are glad to do it." . 
 
 "What is the matter with him?" 
 
 "He has lost his wife." 
 
 "Oh ! " Mr. Sayre said blankly, but with a 
 little irritation as well. He was mistaken, 
 then; Lizzie was not "interested." "Well, I 
 can t help that," he said. "Widower or not, 
 you can t expect me to let my mother come 
 down to taking lodgers while I have plenty of 
 money." 
 
122 ELIZABETH. 
 
 "I should not have expected it." 
 
 Thomas Sayre flushed angrily. "Well, 
 you ve no right to reproach me; you should 
 have told me about it. As for this artist fel 
 low, I suppose his wife died here, and mother 
 had all the annoyance of that?" 
 
 "No, she did not die here," his sister an 
 swered briefly; "it was before he came here." 
 
 "But he s been here four years!" cried 
 Mr. Sayre. Elizabeth looked at him with a 
 puzzled frown. "I mean, you said he was all 
 broken up by his wife s death?" 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "And she died four years ago ! " He put his 
 head back and laughed. 
 
 "Five years ago," she corrected him; "it was 
 a year before he came here." 
 
 "Five years? " He chuckled and slapped his 
 thigh. "My dear Lizzie, you are a great 
 goose. I don t mean to imply that Mr. Ham 
 ilton did not regret his wife properly, and all 
 that sort of thing; but a man doesn t sit in 
 dust and ashes for five years, you know. It s 
 absurd to pretend he does, and give him house- 
 room as an expression of sympathy." 
 
 "You don t know Mr. Hamilton," Elizabeth 
 said. "Dust and ashes may not be your idea 
 of bereaved Love, Tom, but it is some people s; 
 and perhaps if you had known his wife, even 
 
ELIZABETH. 123 
 
 you might understand a grief lasting five years. 
 She was a very lovely woman." 
 
 "He has been comforted, though, since he 
 has been here, has he?" Mr. Sayre observed. 
 " Even I can understand that." 
 
 He had begun to be good-natured, as he 
 found himself amused, but his sister turned 
 upon him. 
 
 "No; and he never will be comforted! He 
 will never care for any one else. Oh, how con 
 temptible you are, Tom, how " The indig 
 nant tears sprang to her eyes; "Good-night," 
 she said. "I think we won t talk any longer. 
 Of course he stays here. He leases the rooms 
 by the year. I 11 I 11 go upstairs now. 
 Oh, Tom!" 
 
 She left him without trusting herself to look 
 at him. Mr. Sayre sat down, threw one leg 
 over the arm of his chair, and whistled. 
 
 II. 
 
 No. 16 Bulfinch Court was on the corner 
 where Diamond Alley came over from the thor 
 oughfare beyond to connect it with the world. 
 The house had been painted white once, but 
 was a dingy drab now; the windows, set deep 
 in the brick walls, had wide sills, upon which 
 Mrs. Sayre kept her flower-pots and knitting- 
 
124 ELIZABETH. 
 
 basket, or where she could rest her book and 
 her after-dinner cup of tea, with that happy 
 disregard of order which tried the delicate pre 
 cision of her daughter. There was a small 
 yard in front of the house, inclosed by a high 
 iron fence that looked like a row of black pikes, 
 rusted here and there, or gray with matted cob 
 webs, and spotted with little white cocoons. The 
 earth was hard and bare, except for a skim of 
 green mould and occasional thin, wiry blades of 
 grass; the continual shadow of a great ailan- 
 tus tree which stood in one corner, kept the 
 yard faintly damp even in the hottest weather, 
 and there was always the heavy scent of the 
 strange blossoms, or else of the fallen leaves. 
 Elizabeth tried to keep some pansies alive here 
 in the summer, but they languished for want 
 of sunshine. 
 
 On this still, hot August afternoon, the 
 young woman looked as languid as her dark 
 flowers. Her talk with her brother, the night 
 before, and her shame that she had lost her 
 temper, had been a pain that still showed itself 
 in her face. Mr. Sayre s indifference, too, to 
 her repentance (for in the morning, when she 
 asked his pardon, he only laughed, and said : 
 "Bless you, Lizzie, dear, that s all right. I 
 was a bear; the fellow shall stay, if you think 
 it wouldn t be the square thing to turn him 
 
ELIZABETH. 125 
 
 out"), such indifference had pinched and 
 chilled her, as a burly north wind might shut 
 a flower. She knew intuitively that his change 
 of purpose had something to do with that hint 
 of Mr. Hamilton s being "comforted," which 
 had so wounded her the night before in its 
 slight to Love and Grief. Still, she felt the re 
 coil of her own sharp words to her brother, as 
 one unused to firearms feels the recoil of a shot, 
 and her face betrayed the pain of self-reproach. 
 
 Thomas Sayre was out; he had taken his 
 pretty Fanny and gone to make some calls on 
 old friends, and now his mother was letting the 
 moments of waiting for his return melt into a 
 pleasant dream of her good son, her dear boy. 
 The windows were open, and the noises of the 
 alley came in. Elizabeth was moving about in 
 the dusk, laying the table for tea. It was too 
 hot for lights, and Mrs. Sayre had put down 
 her sewing and was sitting by the window, her 
 active old hands folded in her lap. Once or 
 twice she glanced at her daughter. Elizabeth s 
 unfailing precision made this task of setting 
 the table every evening a long one. Mrs. 
 Sayre lifted her hands at last with good-natured 
 impatience. 
 
 "My dear, when you have a husband and 
 children, you will really have to move about a 
 little quicker. Dear me ! when I was your 
 
126 ELIZABETH. 
 
 age, I could have set ten tables in the time 
 you ve taken to set one ! " 
 
 Elizabeth started, and blushed faintly. 
 
 "I didn t know you were in any hurry, mo 
 ther dear," she said; and as she tried to make 
 haste, one of the plates slipped through her 
 fingers, striking another with that suspicious 
 sound which tells of a nicked edge. 
 
 Mrs. Sayre looked away, and tapped her fin 
 gers on the window-sill. 
 
 "Oh, I am afraid I have chipped the willow 
 plate ! " Elizabeth said, with the sensitive quiver 
 in her voice which always went to her mother s 
 heart. 
 
 "Never mind, dearie," she reassured her; 
 "it s no matter." 
 
 Elizabeth sighed, and even frowned a little 
 in the darkness; her mother s indifference was 
 a continual trial to her. " I ought not to have 
 been so careless," she said, with faint severity 
 in her voice; and Mrs. Sayre was silenced. 
 
 It was a relief to both of them when the third 
 member of the household entered. Miss Susan 
 Sayre was a tall, timid woman, older than Mrs. 
 Sayre, and yet, as is often the case with unmar 
 ried women, indefinitely younger than her sis 
 ter-in-law; she had Elizabeth s exactness, but 
 with it a deprecatory tremor that gave all her 
 actions the effect of uncertainty. Many a time 
 
ELIZABETH. 127 
 
 Mrs. Sayre would hold her own dear old hands 
 tight together, to keep from seizing some bit of 
 work on which Miss Susan was toiling with la 
 borious and painstaking clumsiness. "It would 
 be so much easier to do it myself," she would 
 think, although she hoped she would have the 
 grace never to say so ! "Fussy " she called her 
 sister-in-law, sometimes, when she felt she must 
 have the relief of speech. But she was glad 
 to see her now, because of the disapproval of 
 Elizabeth s silence. 
 
 She and Liz beth did not seem to get along 
 together, Mrs. Sayre thought. Often enough, 
 upon her knees, she had asked herself "why?" 
 searching her simple heart to find her own 
 offense. 
 
 There is, perhaps, some psychical and uncom- 
 prehended reason why the truest confidences be 
 tween mother and daughter are so difficult and 
 so rare. Usually, a girl can speak of the deep 
 est things in her life with greater ease to any 
 one else than to her mother. Mrs. Sayre felt 
 her daughter s remoteness, but no one thought 
 she did. Such generous, tender, healthy na 
 tures rarely think themselves of enough impor 
 tance to use the phrase of the day, and say that 
 "they are not understood." And yet it is very 
 often the case; the more morbid souls about 
 them are baffled by their very frankness and 
 
128 ELIZABETH. 
 
 openness, and are really unable to understand 
 them; and, too often, unable also to appreciate 
 them. 
 
 Elizabeth, loving her mother with a curious 
 intensity which spent itself in the subtleties of 
 conscientious scruples, was as unaware of Mrs. 
 Sayre s longing for a more tender companion 
 ship as she was of her mother s ability to un 
 derstand her ; for, quite without confidences 
 from Elizabeth, and in spite of "not getting 
 along," Mrs. Say re could read her daughter s 
 nature with wonderful clearness, although she 
 could not explain it in relation to her own. It 
 would have been well for the daughter could 
 the mother have boldly broken down the reserve 
 between them, and confessed just what she read, 
 confessed that she knew that the most vital 
 interest in Elizabeth s life was Oliver Hamil 
 ton. She would have added to this that Lizzie 
 did not know she was in love with Mr. Hamil 
 ton. Here, however, would have been her first 
 mistake: Elizabeth was perfectly aware that 
 she loved him. Mrs. Sayre made one other 
 mistake, too; she said to herself, amused and 
 good-natured and annoyed all together, that it 
 was plain enough that Mr. Hamilton was in 
 love with Liz beth. "Ami there is no earthly 
 reason why he should n t speak! " she reflected. 
 But there was a reason, and an excellent rea- 
 
ELIZABETH. 129 
 
 son, for Oliver Hamilton s silence: he did not 
 know that he was in love with Elizabeth. 
 
 It was no wonder, though, that Mrs. Sayre s 
 penetration failed her here. How could she 
 suppose that her daughter s one aim had been 
 to keep the young man blind to any such possi 
 bility in himself as falling in love? She never 
 imagined that Elizabeth was holding him rigidly 
 to his ideal of the sacredness and eternity of 
 love, an ideal which had sprung up out of 
 his passionate grief when his wife died. That 
 was five years ago. He had come then to Eliz 
 abeth, for she had been Alice s friend, that he 
 might take that poor, empty, human comfort 
 of talking of the past. He had told her all his 
 grief, and his simple, hopeless conviction that 
 his life was over; told it with that pathetic as 
 sertion of an undying sorrow with which human 
 nature seeks to immortalize a moment. 
 
 Such loyalty seemed to Elizabeth so beauti 
 ful, that her reverence for it fed the flame of 
 his devotion to his ideal, even as time began 
 to stand between him and the substance of his 
 grief. He did not know it, he could not, 
 with Elizabeth s worshiping belief in it, but 
 now, five years later, it was the memory of 
 grief, not grief itself, which still darkened his 
 life. It was a lonely life, save for Elizabeth s 
 friendship: long days in his studio, dreaming 
 
130 ELIZABETH. 
 
 over unfinished canvases, brooding upon anni 
 versaries of which she reminded him; talking 
 of an ideal love, in which he believed that he be 
 lieved. And so, gradually, as his mind yielded 
 to the pressure of her thought of him, and his 
 life mirrored a loyalty which was hers, he began 
 to be the embodiment of nobility to Elizabeth 
 Sayre, and by and by the time had come when 
 she said to herself, very simply, that she loved 
 him ; but she said, also, very proudly, that he 
 would never love her. That " never "was the 
 very heart of her love for him. 
 
 Surely, the last person in the world to appre 
 ciate such a state of mind was Elizabeth s cheer 
 ful, simple - minded, sensible mother. And so 
 she continued to hope and plan for this marriage 
 which she so much desired, and to try by small 
 hints to "encourage" Oliver Hamilton. This 
 hinting was, perhaps, the hardest thing which 
 Elizabeth had to bear. Her silent endurance 
 told of the smothered antagonism between 
 mother and daughter, which each would have 
 denied indignantly in herself, but w r as quite 
 aware of in the other. 
 
 It had been a great relief to Mrs. Sayre to 
 confide her desires and impatience to her son. 
 She had done it that very morning; which ac 
 counted for his change of mind in the matter of 
 the objectionable lodger, when Elizabeth went 
 
ELIZABETH. 131 
 
 to him with her apology for her quick words. 
 With instant good-nature, he had decided to 
 further his mother s hopes. With this purpose 
 in his mind, he had gone up to Mr. Hamilton s 
 studio that afternoon and looked at his sketches 
 with far more helpful and discriminating criti 
 cism than Elizabeth, with her wondering praise, 
 had ever given. Fanny went, too, hanging on 
 her father s arm, shyly watching Mr. Hamilton, 
 or answering his occasional reference to herself 
 in a half -frightened, schoolgirl fashion. She was 
 certainly very pretty, Mr. Hamilton thought. 
 
 "Pretty, and a dear child ! " Mrs. Sayre said, 
 watching her with the fondest pride, but with 
 a curious jealousy, too, for her daughter s sake. 
 Fanny was so gay and pretty, so light-hearted 
 and careless, she revealed Elizabeth s impossi 
 bilities. 
 
 "Not that I d have Lizzie different," she as 
 sured her sister-in-law, as they sat in the dark 
 ening parlor, while Elizabeth went to get an 
 other willow plate from the china closet " not 
 that I d have her different; only I would like 
 to see her enjoy life a little more." 
 
 "I don t think Liz beth is unhappy," pro 
 tested the old aunt, "only she just doesn t show 
 her happiness in the way we used to when we 
 were girls." 
 
 "Girls!" said Mrs. Sayre. "You really 
 
132 ELIZABETH. 
 
 can t call Lizzie a girl, Susy. Why, I was 
 married at her age, and had three children. 
 Dear, dear, I wish the child was settled! " 
 
 "Oh, now, Jane," remonstrated the other 
 mildly, "I ve always been happy, and there s 
 no reason why Liz beth should n t be, too, even 
 if she doesn t marry. Indeed, it s better to 
 be as I am than to be unhappily married; and 
 that is possible, you know, Jane." 
 
 Not among nice people," Mrs. Sayre said, 
 with decision; "not when people do their duty. 
 And a poor husband s better than none. No 
 woman s happy unless she s married. And 
 then, to think here is poor, dear Oliver 
 Well, well, I suppose the Lord knows best." 
 
 "If you think so, sister, why don t you leave 
 it in his hands?" said Susan piously. "The 
 Lord will provide, you know." 
 
 "That s just it!" cried Mrs. Sayre. "He 
 has provided, and she won t take his provision. 
 And she s not as young as she was once, Susy, 
 you can t deny that; little Fanny made me 
 realize it. She s old enough herself to settle 
 down, bless her heart! She s nineteen, isn t 
 she? Here s Liz beth," she interrupted her 
 self, as her daughter entered; "she knows. 
 How old is Fanny, Liz beth, nineteen?" 
 
 "Eighteen, mother; she is not nineteen until 
 next month," Elizabeth corrected her. 
 
ELIZABETH. 133 
 
 "Nonsense! " cried her mother; "what differ 
 ence does a week or two make? She s nine 
 teen ; and the first thing we know, she 11 be 
 getting married. I hope so, I m sure. You 
 needn t look shocked, my dear; I was eighteen 
 when your blessed father married me. I be 
 lieve in early marriages, anything to save a 
 girl from being an old maid ! And see here, 
 Lizzie, I want Oliver Hamilton to see Fanny. 
 I m not a matchmaker, but there s no harm in 
 Oliver s seeing Fanny." 
 
 She looked at her daughter with something as 
 much like malice as could come into her motherly 
 face. Elizabeth smiled. 
 
 "But no good, either, if you mean that he 
 might care for Fanny." 
 
 "Oh, Liz beth ! Liz beth ! Where did you 
 get your fancies? " cried the other. "Not from 
 me, surely. Lizzie, second marriages are the 
 Lord s means of healing broken hearts. Oliver 
 would be a thousand times better off with an 
 other wife, instead of brooding over his loss. 
 Bless me, if I had died when I was a youn< 
 woman, I would have made your dear father 
 promise to get another wife as soon as he pos 
 sibly could. I always used to say that my last 
 words would be, "William, marry again! " 
 
 "And you, mother," Elizabeth inquired, 
 smiling, "you would have married again, if" 
 
134 ELIZABETH. 
 
 "Not at all, "Mrs. Sayre declared; "that s 
 quite different. It is the men who should re 
 marry, not the women. It s a great misfortune 
 when a man remains a widower. I w r ish you d 
 remember that, Lizzie." 
 
 Elizabeth Sayre blushed with indignation, 
 and made no reply. Mrs. Sayre sighed. She 
 was glad that Tom was at home for a little 
 while. Tom was like her, she thought. 
 
 "Neither of us will ever be as good as Eliza 
 beth," she assured herself. And she seemed 
 to find the assertion a comfort. 
 
 III. 
 
 Mr. Thomas Sayre knew the satisfaction of 
 self -approval when he and his daughter turned 
 their faces toward home. lie had done his 
 duty ; he had made his visit, he had given him 
 self the pleasure of adding to his mother s in 
 come, and now he could allow these dear people 
 to drift into that pleasant background of his 
 ^thoughts where he took his affection for them 
 for granted. He congratulated himself, too, 
 upon his kindness to his sister; he had done 
 what he could to make Elizabeth happy ; he had 
 dropped a few hints to Mr. Hamilton, even go 
 ing so far as to refer, casually, to the time when 
 Lizzie would marry somebody, and his mother 
 
ELIZABETH. 135 
 
 would be left alone. "Of course she 11 marry 
 one of these days ; I only hope it will be some 
 fellow who is worthy of her! " said Mr. Sayre, 
 feeling that he was very subtile, and that Ham 
 ilton must surely come to the point, pretty soon. 
 Indeed, anxious to prove his friendliness, he had 
 made the artist promise that when he came on 
 to the academy with his picture, he would call 
 upon him. 
 
 "Let us know when you re in town, Hamil 
 ton," he said heartily; "we ll be delighted to 
 see you, and hear the latest news of Lizzie and 
 the old people." 
 
 And Mr. Hamilton was glad to promise. He 
 had enjoyed this visit. Thomas Sayre seemed 
 like a breath of bracing mountain wind coming 
 into his dreamy life ; and Fanny gave him plea 
 sure, too. Her fresh girlish laughter bright 
 ened all the old house, and her little foolish talk 
 was as useless and as pleasant as the dancing 
 sparkle of sunshine on deep, still water. 
 
 The night that Mr. Sayre and his daughter 
 went away, Oliver Hamilton came in to take 
 Elizabeth to prayer-meeting. This custom of 
 going together every Wednesday evening to 
 prayer-meeting was very dear to both these peo 
 ple ; there was no time when they talked so freely 
 of Oliver s sacred past as when they came out 
 into the solemn starlight, the last words of the 
 
136 ELIZABETH. 
 
 benediction lingering in their reverent ears. 
 That nig ht, as the} 7 walked toward the church, 
 Oliver began to speak of Alice almost immedi 
 ately. "How it brightened your mother and 
 your aunt Susan, Elizabeth, to have your niece 
 here! Do you know, she made me think of 
 Alice, sometimes; there s a look" 
 
 "Yes," she answered thoughtfully, "there is 
 a look of Alice. And yet, dear little Fanny 
 has not the earnestness in her |ace which made 
 Alice the strength that she was to those who 
 loved her. She was so strong. That is why 
 she lives in your ITfe still, Oliver." 
 
 Oliver s quick appreciation of her words grat 
 ified her, as only the confirmation of an ideal 
 can gratify one who loves. It brought a serious 
 joy into her eyes, which lie noticed as they sat 
 side by side in the prayer-meeting, singing from 
 the same book, or standing together in prayer. 
 
 Oliver. did not follow the service very closely. 
 That merry glimpse of life which Mr. Sayre s 
 visit had given to No. 1C lingered in his 
 thoughts. Ah, if Alice had only lived, how 
 different his life would have been ! How truly 
 Elizabeth loved her, how truly she understood 
 her ! What would he have done without Eliza 
 beth? As this thought came into his mind, an 
 other followed it, as the shadow of a cloud chases 
 the sunshine from an upland pasture: What 
 
ELIZABETH. 137 
 
 should he do without Elizabeth? "When she 
 marries" (Mr. Sayre s words suddenly sounded 
 in his ears) "when she marries, what shall 
 I do? " The shock of the idea was almost 
 
 physical. He turned and looked at her; her 
 face was bent a little, but he saw the pure line 
 of her cheek under the shadow of her chip 
 hat, which was tied beneath her chin with lav 
 ender ribbons. She wore a white crepe shawl, 
 embroidered above the deep, soft fringe with a 
 running vine of silk; her hands were clasped 
 lightly in her lap ; her gray alpaca gown gleamed 
 faintly in the light of the lamp on the wall above 
 her. Elizabeth marry ? Impossible ! But sup 
 pose she should? What difference would it 
 make to him? Would she not still be Alice s 
 friend, his friend? In this sudden confusion, 
 his ideals seemed to evade him. Did he did 
 he love Elizabeth? 
 
 He felt his face grow white. He had spir 
 itually the sensation of a man who wakes be 
 cause he dreams that he is falling from a height. 
 Oliver Hamilton s eyes were opening to life 
 and light and a possibility. His grief was 
 withdrawing, and withdrawing, and in its place 
 were pain and confusion and doubt, 
 
 Elizabeth, listening to the preacher, her head 
 bending like a flower on its stalk, was so calm 
 and so remote that his reverence for her was 
 
138 ELIZABETH. 
 
 almost fear. When they rose to sing the last 
 hymn, and she missed his voice, she looked at 
 him inquiringly, and, with an effort, he followed 
 mechanically the guidance he had known so long. 
 He tried to sing, but at first he was not aware 
 of the words : 
 
 " Blest be the tie that binds 
 
 Our hearts in Christian love ! 
 The fellowship of kindred minds 
 Is like to that above. 
 
 From sorrow, toil, and pain, 
 
 And sin we shall be free ; 
 And perfect love and friendship reign 
 
 Through all eternity! " 
 
 through all eternity! 
 
 "Do I love her?" he was asking himself, 
 and the very question seemed an affirmation. 
 
 "You didn t sing?" Elizabeth said, when 
 they were alone under the stars. 
 
 "No," he said shortly. She was startled at 
 his tone, and looked at him anxiously, but with 
 out a question. (This habit of hers of waiting 
 silently was, although she did not know it, a 
 most insistent and inescapable question.) " Eliz 
 abeth," he said hoarsely, "it has just come to 
 me I - Listen ! What should I have done 
 without you all these years? Do you- do you 
 understand? " 
 
 It seemed to Elizabeth Sayre as though for 
 
ELIZABETH. 139 
 
 one instant her heart stood still. But the pause 
 between Oliver s words and her answer was 
 scarcely noticeable. 
 
 "It has been a great privilege to me," she said, 
 with a breath as though her throat contracted ; 
 "it is a great happiness to have helped you in 
 any way. It is my love for Alice that has 
 helped you." 
 
 "Alice!" 
 
 Oliver made no answer. They walked on, 
 Elizabeth knowing that her hand trembled on 
 his arm, and feeling still that clutch upon her 
 throat. 
 
 IV. 
 
 "Why, Lizzie, aren t you going to stop a 
 minute? Are n t you going to sit down? " 
 
 Elizabeth stood on the threshold of the par 
 lor, her hand on the door-knob. Through her 
 
 o 
 
 mother s words, she was listening to Oliver 
 Hamilton s step as he went up to his studio. 
 Mr. Hamilton had left her at the front door, 
 and gone at once to his rooms, instead of stop 
 ping as usual for a chat with Mrs. Sayre. 
 The rest of their walk home, after that word 
 "Alice," had been full of forced and idle talk, 
 which covered the shocked silence of their 
 thoughts. 
 
 Mrs. Sayre s voice now seemed to her 
 
140 ELIZABETH. 
 
 daughter like a stone flung into a still pool, 
 which shattered the silence, and let loose a 
 clamorous repetition of this strange thing Oli 
 ver had said, or rather this terrible thing which 
 he had left unsaid. Elizabeth leaned against 
 the door, holding the knob in. a nervous grip. 
 
 " Come, child, sit down and tell us about the 
 sermon," Mrs. Say re commanded her, cheerily. 
 "No," Elizabeth said, "I only stopped to say 
 good-night. I I am rather tired." 
 
 "Why, what s happened to Oliver?" said 
 Mrs. Sayre. "Why does n t he come in a 
 minute? Have you and Elizabeth quarreled, 
 Oliver?" she called out good-naturedly, think 
 ing him still in the hall. 
 Elizabeth turned abruptly. 
 "Good-night," she said, and a moment later 
 they heard her light step on the stairs. 
 Her mother and aunt looked at each other. 
 "I believe they Jiave quarreled, Susy. Why, 
 she did n t kiss us good-night," said Mrs. Sayre, 
 in rather an awed voice. 
 
 Elizabeth, in the darkness of her bedroom, 
 stood still in the middle of the floor, her fingers 
 pressed hard upon her eyes ; her heart beating 
 so that she could hardly breathe. The white 
 crepe shawl slipped from her shoulders, and fell 
 like a curve of foam about her feet. The light 
 from the street-lamp, which flared in an iron 
 
ELIZABETH. 141 
 
 bracket on the corner of No. 16, traveled across 
 the worn carpet, and showed the spare, old-fash 
 ioned furnishing of the room; it struck a faint 
 sparkle from the misty surface of the old mir 
 ror, and it gleamed along the edge of a little gilt 
 photograph frame that was standing on the 
 dressing-table. Elizabeth, shivering a little, the 
 soft color deepening in her cheeks, and her eye 
 lashes glittering with tears, saw the flickering 
 gleam, and, with a sudden impulse, lifted the 
 photograph, holding it close to her eyes and 
 staring at it in the darkness. But the light 
 from the lamp in the court was too faint to show 
 the face. With an unsteady hand she struck a 
 match and lit her candle. She had forgotten 
 to take off her bonnet; she stood, the light 
 flaring up into her face, looking with blurred 
 eyes at Alice s picture. At last, with a long 
 sigh, she kissed it gently and put it again on 
 the table. Then she sat down on the edge of 
 her bed, staring straight before her at the can 
 dle, burning steadily in the hot, still night; 
 her hands were clasped tightly upon her knees. 
 
 It was long after that it must have been 
 nearly midnight that Mrs. Sayre heard a step 
 in her bedroom, and said, with a start : 
 "What is it? Is that you, Liz beth? " 
 "Yes, mother dear. I I wanted to kiss 
 you ; I wanted you ! " 
 
142 ELIZABETH. 
 
 Mrs. Say re gathered the slender figure down 
 into her arms. 
 
 "Why, Liz beth ! Why, my precious child ! 
 Are you sick, my darling?" 
 
 "No, no," she answered, a thrill of comfort 
 in her voice; "only I didn t kiss you good 
 night. I ought n t to have wakened you. 
 Good-night, mother darling." 
 
 "But, Lizzie," said the tender old voice, 
 "something troubles you, my precious child. 
 Did Oliver " She felt the instant stiffening 
 of the arms about her, and her daughter drew 
 herself away. 
 
 "There s nothing the matter, mother dear," 
 she said, her breathless voice quivering into 
 calmness. "You will go to sleep now, won t 
 you? I ought not to have disturbed - you." 
 And she had gone. 
 
 Mrs. Sayre sighed. "I wish I could learn 
 not to speak about him," she thought. "Yet 
 if she would only tell me ! " 
 
 But nothing could have been more impossi 
 ble. Alas for those natures that cannot give 
 their sorrow to another ! Elizabeth longed for 
 sympathy and comfort, yet she knew not how 
 to open her heart to receive it. Such natures 
 suffer infinitely more than those happier souls 
 whose pain rushes to their lips. 
 
 Elizabeth s struggle with herself had ended 
 
ELIZABETH. 143 
 
 when she sought her mother; she knew what 
 she must do. She said to herself with exul 
 tation that she loved Oliver with all her soul; 
 loved him enough to help him to be true to 
 himself. He had told her, oh, how often, in 
 those earlier days, that to him marriage was 
 for eternity as well as time; that Love, from its 
 very nature, could not be untrue, and so there 
 could be but one love in a life. "If a second 
 comes," he used to say, "either it is an impos 
 tor, or the first was; either the first marriage 
 was not sacred, or the second will not be ! " 
 She remembered how she had heard him say 
 once of a man who had suffered as he had suf 
 fered: "No, his living is over; he can remem 
 ber, but he cannot live again. If he dares to 
 try, life will be ashes in his mouth ! " 
 
 Should she let him try ? Should she let him 
 think that his love for Alice was not love, or 
 his love for her was disloyalty to Alice ? How 
 plain, how easy, was the answer, just because 
 she loved him ! 
 
 Y. 
 
 The next morning Mrs. Sayre looked at 
 Elizabeth anxiously. It was evident that her 
 daughter suffered, and she longed to find one 
 weak spot in that armor of reserve where she 
 might pour in the oil and wine of love. But 
 
144 ELIZABETH. 
 
 Elizabeth s face had settled into the invincible 
 calm which sympathy dare not touch. Indeed, 
 her mother would even have wondered whether 
 her suspicion, in that hurried kiss at midnight, 
 had not been all wrong, had it not been for Mr. 
 Hamilton s manner. 
 
 Oliver Hamilton was too confused and dazed 
 by his own possibilities to take thought of what 
 his face or manner might betray; he said to 
 himself that Elizabeth did not know what self- 
 knowledge had leaped into his astounded brain 
 in those brief words of his. But he would tell 
 her; only, not to-day, not to-day! He did 
 not doubt that he loved her, at least he loved 
 Love ; but to love her, gave the lie to five years 
 protestations ! 
 
 Elizabeth made no effort to avoid him. She 
 believed so firmly in his loyalty to the past, 
 a loyalty so beautiful that it had kindled in 
 her the very love which it denied, she be 
 lieved so entirely in him and his love for the 
 dead Alice, that she would not permit herself 
 to doubt that his thought of her was only a 
 fleeting fancy. 
 
 To avoid him was to confess a fear that it was 
 more. So when, on Sunday afternoon, he sug 
 gested that they should go out and walk across 
 the bridge and along the road that led over the 
 marshes, she assented with pleasure ; a pleasure 
 
ELIZABETH. 145 
 
 in which, when they started, there was a thread 
 of irritation, because she knew, as they walked 
 down the Court, that her mother and aunt 
 Susan were looking after them, and speculating 
 as to whether Oliver was "going to speak." 
 She was glad to turn into the first side street, 
 and lose the consciousness of the eyes that were 
 watching the back of her head. It was that 
 sense of relief that made her draw a long 
 breath, and Oliver instantly turned and looked 
 at her with a solicitude in his eyes which was 
 new. 
 
 "Are you tired?" he said gently. 
 
 "No," she answered. She saw that the hour 
 she had refused to think possible was coming; 
 yet it should not come! "Oh, Oliver," she 
 said hurriedly, "I wish you would make a 
 study of the marshes in September; there is no 
 autumnal coloring so lovely as those stretches 
 of bronze and red, with pools here and there 
 that are like bits of the sky. Suppose we try 
 to find just what you want, this afternoon, and 
 then this week you can go to work. I wish you 
 would really and seriously begin to work." 
 
 "I want to, now, myself," he said soberly. 
 "I have wasted too much time. Elizabeth, I 
 have lived in a dream." 
 
 "Yes," she agreed, wondering whether the 
 unsteadiness which she felt in her voice could 
 
146 ELIZABETH. 
 
 be heard, "I know you have. I have been 
 thinking about it lately, and I wanted to say to 
 you I know you will forgive me for Alice s 
 sake, if it seems a hard thing I wanted to say 
 to you that it seems to me you ought to make 
 your grief an inspiration in your life, not a hin 
 drance. It ought to mean achievement, not a 
 dream, Oliver." 
 
 He did not answer her, and when, a little 
 later, he began to speak, it was of something 
 else. 
 
 The walk across the marshes was toward the 
 east; the city lay behind them, and the little 
 tidal river, catching a faint glow on its darken 
 ing expanse, wandered on ahead, fading at last 
 into the cold violet of the distant hills. 
 
 "Oh, this is what you ought to do," Eliza 
 beth said, as they paused a moment, and turned 
 to look back at the town, whose windows flared 
 with a sudden ruddy blaze. The housetops 
 were black against the yellow sky ; a cross upon 
 a distant spire flashed, and then faded into the 
 sunset. The sea stretched its fingers in among 
 the marshes, and rifts of water shone blue with 
 the faint upper sky, or fiercely red where the 
 clouds along the west were mirrored. The salt 
 grass had bronzed and bleached, and had a hun 
 dred rippling tints of dull purple or warmer 
 russet. Some of it had been cut, and lay in 
 
ELIZABETH. 147 
 
 sodden yellow swaths, and some had been gath 
 ered into haystacks, that stood here and there 
 like little thatched domes. A group of boys 
 were playing down by the water, and their black 
 figures stood out clear against the amber sky ; a 
 tongue of flame from their bonfire leaped up, 
 red and sharp, and lapsed again ; and the lazy 
 trail of white smoke, lying low along the marsh, 
 brought to the two watchers the faint delicious 
 scent of burning brush and drift. 
 
 "Oh, couldn t you do this?" Elizabeth said, 
 breathless with the joy of color. "Oh, how 
 wonderful the sky is ! " 
 
 But Oliver, instead of planning for a picture, 
 was staring into her face. 
 
 "Elizabeth," he said, "I want to tell you 
 something. When I said I wanted to begin to 
 work, did you understand what I meant? My 
 past, you know what it is to me, but Oh, 
 Elizabeth "- 
 
 She turned her eyes away from his, but she 
 answered calmly : 
 
 "Yes, indeed I do know what it is to you, 
 Oliver ; and it is your present, too, I know 
 that. I know how real Alice is to you. It is 
 she who makes your life now, just as she has 
 made it in the past, and will make it in the 
 future." 
 
 He opened his lips to speak, but he had no 
 
148 ELIZABETH. 
 
 words, only blank impatience at the impossibil 
 ity of putting aside that sacred name ; and yet 
 he was aware of a curious willingness to accept 
 the check; he could not understand himself. 
 
 "Ought we not to go home?" Elizabeth was 
 saying gently. "See how gray the marshes are 
 getting." 
 
 He shivered. 
 
 "Yes, come." 
 
 The walk home was very silent. 
 
 VI. 
 
 The yellow elm-leaves were thick upon the 
 ground in Bulfinch Court, when September, 
 weary with its noon heats, held out an entreat 
 ing hand to cool October. Mrs. Say re found 
 it necessary to have a fire occasionally in the 
 evening, and she could not understand why it 
 was that Oliver Hamilton did not sometimes 
 ask to join the little circle about the hearth. 
 
 "He used to, last autumn," she complained. 
 "What s the matter, Lizzie, what does it 
 mean?" 
 
 The anxious interest in her mother s face 
 offended Elizabeth Sayre; "Have you refused 
 him?" it said. "Have you had any disagree 
 ment?" 
 
 The indestructible tie between mother and 
 
ELIZABETH. 149 
 
 daughter was sadly strained in those fading 
 fall days. Elizabeth had withdrawn more and 
 more into her own life ; and she was too eager 
 in her reticent living to know how cruelly she 
 put her mother aside. The thought of Oliver 
 Hamilton shut every other thought out. He 
 loved her! Here was glory and sweetness, but 
 pain and disappointment as well. His love for 
 the dead Alice, his serene and lofty loyalty, in 
 which Elizabeth had so rejoiced, where were 
 they? Yet they should not cease! He must 
 be true to his own ideal, she said to herself 
 again and again ; he must conquer this passing 
 unfaith. 
 
 With this determination tingeing every action 
 and word, absorbing every thought, it was no 
 wonder Mrs. Say re felt shut out of her daugh 
 ter s heart. Elizabeth lived, in those fall days, 
 only to turn Oliver back to his own better life. 
 In all her talks with him, as they went to prayer- 
 meeting, or wandered through the picture gal 
 leries, or came home together from the library, 
 there was this strange fencing and parrying. 
 How many times, when she thought she saw the 
 words trembling on his lips which would make 
 him untrue to his best self, and bring her the 
 sweetness of human love, had she turned his 
 thoughts back to Alice! How many times, 
 when the door to happiness had seemed about 
 
150 ELIZABETH. 
 
 to open, had she closed it with that single 
 word, "Alice"! 
 
 Alice ! Alice ! The name rang in her ears ; 
 it seemed to her sometimes as though she hated 
 Alice. 
 
 This suppressed excitement told upon her; 
 her face grew paler, and there was a weary look 
 in her eyes which her mother n >ted with anx 
 iety. Mrs. Sayre almost betrayed her satisfac 
 tion when, one evening late in September, Oliver 
 told her that he was going to New York for a 
 fortnight, and promised her to call upon her 
 son, while he was there. lie told Elizabeth 
 gloomily, that he was glad to get away ; life was 
 a miserable puzzle, he said, and he was going to 
 forget it for a while if he could. 
 
 Her face brightened. "I am so glad you are 
 going ! " she said. It was well that he should 
 not see her for a time, she thought; he would 
 have regained his old faith before he came back 
 again. 
 
 The look of relief in her face did not escape 
 him. 
 
 "She doesn t love me," he said to himself . 
 "Well, I will not urge her, I will not trouble 
 her: but our friendliness is over; it can never 
 be the same again." 
 
 Of course he was right. He was wakening 
 to find himself still a man, although he had 
 
ELIZABETH. 151 
 
 slept so long beneath his cloak of sorrow that 
 he was yet half blind and dazed ; and he knew 
 that he and Elizabeth must be either more to 
 each other, or less. 
 
 It would have been hard for him to say which 
 was the stronger in his mind, his conviction 
 that he was yet capable of love, or his shame 
 that his love was capable of death. It was 
 this confusion of shame and exultation and pain 
 that made it easy for Elizabeth to check the 
 words which came again and again to his lips. 
 This sudden vanishing of the darkness of un 
 reality left him groping in ablaze of light; he 
 was full of bewilderment. He could not live as 
 he had been living ; he dared not think of Alice ; 
 it seemed as though his love for Elizabeth 
 had masqueraded beneath the thought of Alice ! 
 
 But Elizabeth felt a burden lifted when he 
 went away. 
 
 "It will be all right when he comes back," 
 she said to herself ; "he does not know that I 
 saw it, and he will forget it." And so she fell 
 into the old round of duties, and she and her 
 mother came a little closer together, only jarring 
 apart again when Mrs. Sayre mentioned Oliver 
 Hamilton in any way. But by the time his two 
 weeks absence had lengthened into three, and 
 the fourth was just opening, Mrs. Sayre had 
 learned, she said to herself, to hold her tongue, 
 
152 ELIZABETH. 
 
 and so she and her daughter came to know 
 something like friendship, as well as the love 
 which had always been theirs. 
 
 " Bnt I would like to know what keeps Oli 
 ver," she confided to her sister-in-law, as they 
 sat beside the fire, in the Saturday evening dusk. 
 " Liz beth won t let anybody see that she misses 
 him, but she does." 
 
 Susan shook her head doubtfully. "I think 
 Lizzie s glad he s gone. I can t say why; but 
 that s how it seems to me." 
 
 "Well, Susy," interposed the other with ami 
 able contempt, "you can t be expected to be 
 a judge you. But I, being married, under 
 stand such things. She misses him terribly, 
 my dear. Well, I m glad there s a letter from 
 him to-night. I wish she d come home and 
 read it to us." 
 
 Susan leaned forward and stirred the fire 
 gently. 
 
 "I m not married, Jane, I know," she ac 
 knowledged humbly; "but sometimes I think 
 Liz beth feels proud because Oliver s faithful 
 to the deceased? " 
 
 Mrs. Sayre took off her glasses and polished 
 them quickly on her black silk apron. Her 
 handsome black eyes snapped. 
 
 "Susy, if you weren t born an old maid, you 
 never would have thought of anything so ridicu- 
 
ELIZABETH. 153 
 
 lous ! " She picked up the unopened letter from 
 the table and looked at it longingly. "Dear 
 me! I wish I knew what was in it. It s thick 
 enough to be an offer, and " 
 
 She did not finish the sentence, for Elizabeth 
 opened the sitting-room door. The faint glow 
 of the fire dazzled her eyes, fresh from the rainy 
 darkness of the streets, so that at first she did 
 not notice the letter. Her mother, however, 
 accustomed to the half - light, could see her 
 daughter s face, and was troubled by its pallor. 
 
 There was a reason for it; a new pain had 
 come to Elizabeth in her walk home. She had 
 gone out early in the afternoon to visit a sick 
 Sunday-school child ; but, the call made, she had 
 stood hesitating in the doorway of the tenement 
 house. There was nothing of importance that 
 she must do; there was no other visit which 
 must be made. She might as well go home. 
 But she was strangely restless ; she did not want 
 to go home. The thought of sitting by the fire, 
 watching the rainy evening gather into dark 
 ness, while her mother and aunt Susan talked 
 about Oliver, was unbearable. She had borne it 
 often in the past, but then Oliver had been in 
 the house; while they were speaking, she could 
 listen for his step upon the stairs, or the sound 
 of the studio door closing, and then the echo 
 jarring through the empty halls. But how dif- 
 
154 ELIZABETH. 
 
 ferent it all was at No. 16 Bulfinch Court with 
 out him ! All her life seemed bleak and useless, 
 filled only with that gentle chatter over cups of 
 tea by the fireside. No, she could not go home 
 just yet. The rain beat against the houses on 
 the opposite side of the street, and there was a 
 gush and gurgle from the tin spout that carried 
 the water from the gutters under the eaves. A 
 sudden gust of wind twisted the loose folds of 
 her umbrella into a wet spiral; she shook it and 
 opened it, and then found herself plodding out 
 into the rain. 
 
 She missed Oliver with a sort of sick pain 
 about her heart which she did not understand. 
 "It s enough happiness to love him, even if he 
 does n t love me," she assured herself, as she had 
 done many times before, never doubting her own 
 sincerity. Ever since she had recognized her 
 love for him, she had been holding with all her 
 might to this belief which human experience 
 gives us the right at least to doubt, that the 
 human heart can be satisfied to give love, when 
 it receives none in return. 
 
 Elizabeth, walking aimlessly into the storm, 
 feeding the hunger of her heart with this asser 
 tion, found herself at last on the road that led 
 over the marshes. 
 
 The sky was low and dull; the gray rain was 
 sweeping in from the sea, and through the sod- 
 
ELIZABETH. 155 
 
 den grass the winding fingers of water were black 
 ening at the touch of the wind. The memory 
 of the yellow August sunset came back to her, 
 and Oliver s words; she bit her lip, and the 
 landscape blurred as though with some sudden 
 driving mist. 
 
 It is hard enough at best to keep the exal 
 tation of sacrifice in one s daily commonplace 
 living; but when into that commonplace living 
 creeps the suggestion that the sacrifice has been 
 unnecessary, then a sick bewilderment falls upon 
 the soul. This suggestion came now, suddenly, 
 to Elizabeth Sayre. Perhaps she had made a 
 terrible mistake ? If Oliver loved her, whether 
 he put it into words or not, if he did, was 
 not the untruth to his ideal come? Would any 
 hiding it from herself and him do away with 
 the fact ? Merely to keep him silent could not 
 make him loyal to Alice. 
 
 Elizabeth caught her breath as one who sobs, 
 and yet with a strange, sharp pang of joy. 
 Oliver, by all those unuttered words, was hers ! 
 
 But she would not allow herself to think such 
 thoughts. Her mind was in a tumult; she 
 doubted her own sincerity. She turned and be 
 gan to walk back to town. She was very tired; 
 her dress was heavy with dampness, and her face 
 wet with rain; her tears were hot upon her 
 cheeks. No one noticed her in her long walk 
 
156 ELIZABETH. 
 
 across the marshes; the occasional pedestrian 
 cared only to shelter himself behind his um 
 brella, and did not look into the faces of young 
 women foolish enough to be out in such a storm. 
 When she got into town, it was quite dark; the 
 street-lamps gleamed with faint, quivering re 
 flections along the wet pavements, and the peo 
 ple were pushing and jostling, in their haste to 
 reach the cheerful shelter of their homes. 
 
 Elizabeth found herself thinking of the fire 
 side and her mother s face. She was weary of 
 herself ; she wanted to escape from this strange 
 triumph of defeat ; for, at last, she knew, with 
 out reasoning about it, that she was going to 
 accept the facts as they were, she was going 
 to be happy, and let Oliver be happy. Joy had 
 been hiding itself under the pain of the thought 
 that Oliver might never regain the past. She 
 knew now that she did not want him to regain 
 it. lie loved her; and she was glad. 
 
 She did not go into the sitting-room when she 
 reached home; she was too wet, she said, stand 
 ing in the doorway, and smiling at her mother 
 and aunt; tired, but with delicate color deepen 
 ing in her face, and with the rain still shining 
 in\er soft hair, all roughened by the wind and 
 curling about her forehead. "I 11 go upstairs 
 and put on some dry clothes, and then come 
 down and set the tea-table," she said; "and 
 
ELIZABETH. 157 
 
 I m sorry I ve been out so long, mother dear." 
 There was a little burst of joyousness in her 
 voice; yet all the while she was wondering 
 whether a reaction would come, and she would 
 find herself capable of taking up her sacrifice 
 again. Then she saw the letter which her 
 mother, in smiling silence, held up to her. Mrs. 
 Sayre s look turned her back into her old re 
 serve ; she would read her letter alone. 
 
 "I will be down in a moment and set the 
 table," she repeated, and, taking the letter, she 
 slipped out into the chilly darkness of the hall, 
 and up to her bedroom. 
 
 It seemed to Mrs. Sayre, waiting impatiently 
 for news, that Elizabeth took a long time to 
 read her letter. "Liz beth s like you, Susy," 
 she said, "she can t hurry." Indeed, the pause 
 grew so long that Susan offered to go upstairs 
 to see what detained Liz beth. Susan was 
 sensitive about her niece s slowness, because 
 Mrs. Sayre always pointed out in this connec 
 tion Elizabeth s resemblance to her aunt. "Do, 
 Susy," Mrs. Sayre assented, "and tell her we 
 want to hear what Oliver says." But Susan, 
 when she returned, looked troubled, and did not 
 bring any news of Oliver. 
 
 " Liz beth s lying down; she says she has a 
 headache. Dear me! I hope the child hasn t 
 taken cold, Jane? Don t you think you d bet 
 ter give her something hot to drink?" 
 
158 ELIZABETH. 
 
 Mrs. Sayre s solicitude banished instantly all 
 thought of Oliver; she went bustling up to her 
 daughter s room, full of tender anxiety. But 
 Elizabeth, lying white and still upon the bed, 
 would only assure her, faintly, that she was tired ; 
 that her head ached; that there was nothing 
 the matter with her; that she didn t want any 
 thing. " Oh, nothing ! Nothing ! Only let me 
 ,be alone, mother; and and perhaps I shall 
 sleep. Oh, won t you please go?" Distressed 
 and worried, there was nothing for Mrs. Sayre 
 to do but kiss her daughter, resting her soft old 
 hand upon Elizabeth s forehead, and stroking 
 her hair gently, with little murmuring sounds of 
 love, and then slip out of the room, closing the 
 door quietly behind her. 
 
 When she had gone, Elizabeth Sayre rose, 
 with sudden, violent haste ; she slipped the bolt 
 of her door, and then fell upon her knees at her 
 bedside. 
 
 Mrs. Sayre knocked gently a few hours after 
 ward, but there was no answer, and she said to 
 Susan that Elizabeth must be asleep, and sleep 
 was the best thing for her; so she wouldn t dis 
 turb her by going in to see how she was. She 
 meant to let her sleep in the morning, too, she 
 told her sister-in-law. But when she went down 
 to breakfast she found her daughter in the sit 
 ting-room. Elizabeth answered all her mother s 
 
ELIZABETH. 159 
 
 inquiries, and kissed her gently, assuring her 
 that she was quite well. A headache was of no 
 consequence, she said ; yet it made her absent- 
 minded, and she did not talk very much. 
 Breakfast was almost over, Mrs. Sayre told her 
 son afterward, before Lizzie remembered the 
 great piece of news, and said, with a sort of 
 start : 
 
 "Mother, Mr. Hamilton writes me to say that 
 he is very happy. Fanny has promised to 
 marry him. Tom is very much pleased, and I 
 I am so glad for dear little Fanny." 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 I. 
 
 WHEN Friend Townsend s sister married the 
 son of a man who had been known to be a ras 
 cal, the whole Townsend connection deplored it 
 with him; and they added to their sympathy 
 the flattery of surprise. Mary was not head 
 strong, they said, nor restless. She had come 
 of generations of Friends, and that she should 
 marry David Dudley s son was something of 
 which they would not have thought her capable. 
 Among themselves, to be sure, some of the con 
 nection recalled a time when Friend Townsend 
 himself had caused them a little anxiety; but 
 that was long past, and then, too, he was a man, 
 and that made all the difference in the world. 
 So Mary s conduct in marrying Henderson Dud 
 ley was as puzzling as it was deplorable. 
 
 True, the young man did not in any way re 
 semble his father; so far as any one knew, he 
 was honest ; and inasmuch as he was diligent in 
 business, and unwilling to live upon his wife s 
 fortune, he might be said to serve the Lord ; fur- 
 
AT WHOSE DOORT 161 
 
 thermore, he had never cared to look upon that 
 bad side of life in which David Dudley had 
 found his greatest delight. But he was one of 
 the world s people, and he was his father s 
 son ! This was enough to keep a commiserating 
 sympathy with Joseph Townsend fresh in the 
 minds of Mary s relations, even after she had 
 apologized ^y dying, and Henderson himself, 
 three years later, had gone meekly out of the 
 world in which he had walked very silently and 
 blamelessly, leaving Mary s child as a peace- 
 offering to his brother-in-law. 
 
 Little Rachel was not a Townsend, Joseph s 
 dovelike wife used to say; the spark in those 
 fierce dark eyes, dimmed by sudden despairing 
 tears, or dancing in mirth which "was not con 
 venient," confused and perplexed Sarah. It was 
 inconceivable to her that a child who could lightly 
 disobey her could feel the love which Rachel 
 sometimes protested. Nor could she reconcile 
 a frankness that was often cruel with an in 
 sincerity which was almost imtruthfulness, not 
 realizing that the one might spring from that ig 
 norance of suffering which is part of the glory 
 of youth, and the other from a desire to say a 
 pleasant thing or a longing for approval. Each 
 day of Rachel s childhood had been full of con 
 tradictions. She would wound her aunt by dis 
 respect, and then fling herself upon the ground 
 
162 AT WHOSE DOOE? 
 
 to kiss a pebble Sarah s foot had touched. She 
 would strike a servant, but cry until her great 
 brown eyes were almost blind because she had 
 found a dead bird in the garden. 
 
 The child loved Love. And yet this, her 
 strongest characteristic, denied itself daily with 
 pretense of hate, with furious angers, with sud 
 den disobediences. But had they been read 
 aright, these things were only the outcries and 
 pleadings for love. When Rachel went sullenly 
 to bed without kissing her aunt good-night, it 
 was a pity no one guessed her passionate wish 
 that Joseph s wife should care enough about the 
 kiss to demand it. When she ran half way to 
 town trying to overtake the carriage, though 
 she had been bidden to stay at home, it was a 
 pity no one knew that it was to say, "Forgive 
 me for looking cross; oh, I love thee, aunt 
 Sarah!" But of course no one knew it, for 
 when her disobedience was discovered, the 
 grieved rebuke, and the declaration that it was 
 deceit as well as disobedience, closed Rachel s 
 lips to her confession. Yes, yes ; it was a pity, 
 nothing more. Sarah s deep and pathetically 
 intense desire to do her duty to the child kept it 
 from being anything more than a pity. No one 
 could blame her, this quiet, righteous, anxious 
 woman, who saw the child s bitterness with all 
 the uncomprehending dismay of a sweet, cold, 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 163 
 
 untempted soul. It was a pity, too, that Sarah 
 and Joseph had not had children of their own ; 
 the companionship would have been much to 
 little Rachel, and doubtless her uncle and aunt 
 would have given less thought and prayer to 
 her training had there been others to claim their 
 anxiety and their discipline, and so she would 
 have been less conscious of her own shortcom 
 ings, and very likely there would have been 
 fewer shortcomings. Certainly other children 
 would have made her aware of Sarah s and 
 Joseph s love for her, and taught her, too, to 
 express her love for them in language they could 
 understand. 
 
 " Sometimes, Joseph, I think she has not even 
 natural feeling for us," Sarah Townsend said, 
 as they sat together in their still parlor one 
 September afternoon. The wide, shining top 
 of the mahogany table was between them, but 
 they were not occupied with books or writ 
 ing. Friend Townsend was nervously pulling 
 to pieces a blossom which had fallen from the 
 bunch of white-winged sweet peas in Sarah s 
 bosom, and his wife s hands were folded pla 
 cidly in her lap. 
 
 The shutters in the long French windows 
 were bowed, for at midday it was still warm on 
 the south side of the house, and three thin 
 streaks of sunshine fell across the drab carpet, 
 
164 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 and touched the brass claws on the feet of the 
 table, and struck a glint from the andirons in 
 the empty fireplace. There were no vain and 
 unnecessary adornments in this room; two sil 
 houettes in narrow- gilt frames hung high above 
 the black wooden mantelpiece, and 011 a rotund 
 chest of drawers covered with a plain linen 
 cloth, stood a jug filled with early goldenrod; 
 there were shelves 011 either side of the fire 
 place, full of books in sober bindings, but there 
 was no warmth of color in all the bare, plain 
 room, and no pleasant disorder of home life. 
 
 Sarah Townsend s sweet face was still young 
 in its serenity, though the hair beneath the del 
 icate fold of her cap was as gray as her silvery 
 gown. Joseph s dark eyes smiled as he looked 
 at her. 
 
 "She must love thee," he said; "don t thee 
 get discouraged about her, Sarah, or I don t 
 know where the child will end." 
 
 "I cannot be discouraged," she answered with 
 grave simplicity, "for she is in the Lord s hands. 
 Yet, if she would but trust us a little more ; if 
 she would believe that we desire only her own 
 good ! She would know that if she cared for us, 
 Joseph." 
 
 "Does thee think," he said, after a moment s 
 pause, lifting his dark, thin face from his breast 
 and wrinkling his forehead restlessly, "does thee 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR* 165 
 
 think that we trust her quite enough ? If we 
 explained to her why we were unwilling that she 
 should see a play, it would be less wearing to 
 us than her perpetual questioning, and it might 
 be better for her to have her judgment agree 
 with ours." 
 
 "But is it not best that she should learn the 
 habit of unquestioning obedience?" Sarah asked 
 gently. "She ought to believe that we know 
 what is wise for her without any explanation." 
 
 "No doubt thee s right," Joseph assented 
 quickly, throwing himself back in his chair with 
 a sigh ; " it is not best to give reasons to a child. 
 But, Sarah, suppose, instead of forbidding it, 
 we let her go ? She would learn, as I did, how 
 empty all such amusement is, what hunger of 
 the soul it leaves ! But to realize that, I some 
 times think one must see it for one s self." 
 
 "See it for herself! " Sarah said, clasping and 
 reclasping her delicate hands, her even voice 
 trembling a little; "why, Joseph, does thee un 
 derstand what that means? Shall one touch 
 pitch and not be defiled ? Thee knows I do 
 not mean to be narrow. Many of the world s 
 people do go to plays, and they are pious people 
 according to their light ; but we have more light. 
 Shall we let the child do wrong that she may 
 feel the misery of sin ? Ought we not to save 
 her such knowledge while we have the power 
 
166 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 and the right to restrain her? Oh, Joseph, 
 though thou didst learn to love peace through 
 thy temptations, remember thou art a man, and 
 thou wast born a Friend, too. But think of 
 her father, and her grandfather! Remember 
 her impulsive, ill-balanced nature; think what 
 the effect might be." 
 
 "Yes, thee s right," Friend Townsend said, 
 after a pause. "Thee s always right. But I 
 can t see why she should want to go so much. 
 It isn t as though she had ever gone, and knew 
 the pleasure of it. Is it because young Roger 
 Livingstone asked her? Does she like to be 
 with him, Sarah?" 
 
 "I think it is because we do not wish it," 
 Sarah answered with a sigh, "and perhaps be 
 cause she knows we do not approve of Roger 
 Livingstone. It is nothing deeper." 
 
 II. 
 
 The garden in front of Friend Townsend s 
 great gray house had been touched by frost, 
 though the days were languid with slumberous 
 September heat; the more delicate plants stood 
 with limp, pallid leaves and hanging heads, but 
 salvias blazed inside the box borders, and zinnias 
 were in coarse and riotous bloom. There was a 
 scent of decay and dampness in the still air, in 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 167 
 
 spite of the flooding sunshine, and now and then 
 a leaf floated slowly down from the thinning 
 branches of the tulip-trees, through which came 
 the distant flash and ripple of the river. 
 
 Rachel Dudley stood leaning against the old 
 sun-dial at the foot of the garden, her chin rest 
 ing on her hand, and her straight black brows 
 gathered in a sullen frown. 
 
 She could not be seen from the house, for the 
 laburnum hedge hid that part of the garden, but 
 any one passing the stone gateway might have 
 caught a glimpse of her slender figure through 
 the osage-orange trees which bordered the dusty 
 turnpike. And Roger Livingstone was watch 
 ing for her, as he made his horse walk past the 
 line of Friend Townsend s estate; so he was 
 quick to dismount and throw the bay s bridle 
 over the stone ball on one of the ivy-covered 
 gate-posts, and then open the tall iron gate, and 
 hurry down the steps into the damp stillness of 
 the garden. 
 
 Roger and Rachel had known each other for 
 many years, but in spite of perpetual quarrel 
 ing it had never occurred to Roger to fall in 
 love with her, at least until very lately, and 
 then only because his father had looked at him 
 one day with shrewd good-nature and said : " Re 
 member, boy, the pretty Quakeress has a for 
 tune of her own." 
 
168 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 That had made Roger think; but, after all, 
 could a fortune give a man happiness, if the girl 
 was first jealous and then indifferent, and al 
 ways quick to take offense ? Roger thought not ; 
 but he liked Rachel, and while he was making 
 up his mind he was involuntarily and uncon 
 sciously more friendly. A young man cannot 
 contemplate marrying a girl, even as a remote 
 possibility, and avoid, in his most ordinary con 
 versation with her, a betrayal of the attitude of 
 his mind. 
 
 After these careless words about the pretty 
 Quakeress and the fortune, Roger found a new 
 pleasure in meeting Rachel ; but he felt, vaguely, 
 that Friend Townsend did not like him, and 
 so he fell into the habit of seeing her oftener 
 in the old irarden than in her uncle s house. In 
 
 o 
 
 these meetings, he did not speak to her of the 
 happy interests of more worldly youth. lie 
 could not talk of this harmless diversion or of 
 that pretty folly, a ball, or a dance, or the hun 
 dred gayeties that belonged to their years, be 
 cause Rachel knew nothing about them. The 
 only thing that he could give or that she could 
 receive was sympathy for what she chose to con 
 sider the loneliness of her life. 
 
 Roger knew that this sympathy gave her plea 
 sure, so, being a good-natured fellow, he was 
 willing enough to condole with her. Further- 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 169 
 
 more, the half secrecy o their meetings here 
 in the garden, or along some shadowy path be 
 side the river, had a charm for him, to which 
 his father s hint had added a pleasing excite 
 ment of uncertainty as to his future sentiments 
 towards her. He was eager now to know if his 
 plan of taking her to the theatre on Saturday 
 afternoon could be carried out. 
 
 "Well?" he said, as he reached her side. 
 She glanced up for a moment from under her 
 frowning brows at his handsome, boyish face, as 
 he stood striking at his riding boots with his 
 switch and waiting for her reply. 
 
 "It is no use, they won t let me go," she 
 said, gloomily, not even lifting her chin from 
 her slim brown hand. 
 
 He turned sharply on his heel, his spur grind 
 ing down into the damp moss of the path. For 
 an instant he was too much disappointed to 
 speak. 
 
 "It s outrageous ! " he cried, "upon my word, 
 it s outrageous! They re cruel, I tell you, Ra 
 chel, they re absolutely cruel! " 
 
 "They don t care," Rachel said briefly. 
 
 "I d go, anyhow," Roger continued an 
 grily; "why on earth should you give up every 
 thing to please people who don t care anything 
 about you anyway ? " 
 
 Rachel winced. "I know they don t," she 
 said. 
 
170 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 "Well, then, make up your mind to go," 
 Roger ended; "it isn t as though they had any 
 reason for saying you shouldn t. Of course, 
 in any reasonable thing, I would n t advise you 
 to to disobey them. But this is folly, Ra 
 chel. Honestly, I believe I d go! " 
 
 "Of course it is not reasonable," Rachel 
 cried passionately. " Why, if they would give 
 me a good reason, I would n t say another word. 
 They just tell me, It isn t best/ and if I say 
 Why? aunt Sarah says, Thee must trust thy 
 uncle and me. Trust them ! " and she laughed, 
 "they won t let me go because they want to 
 disappoint me. I will trust them to do that ! 
 
 "Why, they make a business of being disa 
 greeable to you, don t they?" Roger condoled, 
 his flash of boyish anger gone. 
 
 " They think it makes people good to be dis 
 appointed," Rachel said, with that contempt 
 which seems to youth so withering. "And they 
 want to make me good, they think I am so 
 wicked. Oh, I am I am ! but if they thought 
 anything good of me I could be good, it seems 
 to me; or if they loved me the least bit, I 
 would not mind giving up everything in the 
 world for them, everything! But they don t 
 care whether I am alive or dead!" She laid 
 her cheek down on the hot face of the dial and 
 sobbed. 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 171 
 
 " Don t cry," Roger said sympathetically; 
 "what good does it do to cry? Why don t you 
 just go, anyhow? I believe they d respect you 
 more if you had a will of your own. And it 
 is n t as if they were your own father and mo 
 ther, you know." 
 
 She shook her head. "Oh, I can t ! Thee 
 knows 1 can t. And it isn t that I want to go 
 to the theatre so very much, Roger. If they 
 had only said I shouldn t, differently. It s 
 the way they said it. As though I was wicked 
 to want such a thing ; a kind of despair about 
 me ; and yet as if, after all, it was only to be 
 expected of me. I might as well live up to it. 
 I might as well be as bad as they think I am ! " 
 
 Her quick transition from grief to anger 
 dried her tears. Roger did not know what to 
 say; his somewhat slow mind could not keep 
 pace with her sudden changes, and her gusts of 
 feeling wearied him. 
 
 He glanced at his horse, cropping the grass 
 about the gate-post, and rubbing his velvety 
 nose against the reddening ivy leaves. 
 
 Rachel noticed his look and feared he was 
 going to leave her. "I believe thee s right, 
 Roger," she said. "I believe I ought to live 
 my life in my own way, to make them respect 
 me. I will go I" 
 
 Roger looked at her with admiration, yet 
 
172 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 there was a little doubt in his voice as he said: 
 "It s the only thing to do, Rachel; only of 
 course you don t want to make them very 
 angry?" 
 
 "I don t care how angry they are!" she 
 cried; "it isn t as if they loved me." 
 
 "Or as if you loved them," Roger said. 
 "Only think it over, Rachel. I don t know; 
 somehow, I don t feel quite sure." 
 
 "JT feel sure," she answered, striking her 
 hands sharply together; "but, oh, I do love 
 them I do! I do! And they don t want my 
 love!" 
 
 Roger tried awkwardly to comfort her, but 
 he felt as though he would rather give up the 
 theatre than have any more tears, and he began 
 to think he had been rash to urge her to go. 
 
 But Rachel had decided. There was a bitter 
 joy in making herself as bad as her uncle and 
 aunt thought her. 
 
 "They expect me to be disobedient; they are 
 always watching for it; so I 11 go, Roger! " 
 
 III. 
 
 It was not, however, quite easy to go into 
 town on Saturday. 
 
 "Why does thee start so early, Rachel?" 
 Sarah Townsend said, as her niece put on her 
 
AT WHOSE DOOEf 173 
 
 little drab bonnet immediately after the noon 
 dinner; "thee will have a long afternoon in 
 town. I wish thee was not such a gad-about. 
 I wish thee loved thy home." 
 
 "Thee will not miss me," Eachel answered, 
 with the bitterness of premeditated disobedi 
 ence. She was already beginning to feel re 
 morse, and was blaming her aunt for her suffer 
 ing. "If thee thinks I am a gad-about, aunt 
 Sarah, I don t see how thee can expect me to 
 love my home. I don t see how I can." 
 
 Eachel s fingers trembled as she smoothed 
 the gray ribbons under her chin. But Sarah s 
 quiet sigh, as she said, "Thee need not try to 
 show me how little thee cares for thy home, I 
 know it too well," was like wind upon the fire. 
 
 Kachel flung back some sharp untruth as she 
 opened the white front door and let herself out 
 into the sunshine. But there was a sob in her 
 throat, and her eyes were stung with unshed 
 tears which blurred the spray of salvia she 
 stuck in her dress. "I won t look any more 
 like a Friend than I can help! " she said hotly, 
 as she picked the flaming blossom, knowing how 
 such a thought would wound her aunt. But she 
 did not need the salvia. Her vivid face was not 
 in harmony with her quiet bonnet and gown; 
 she looked like one of the world s people mas 
 querading as a Quakeress. 
 
174 AT 
 
 Roger watched, with a growing fascination, 
 her kindling eyes and her childlike tears and 
 laughter a.-* the play progressed. He even won 
 dered, as they left the 2 lare of the theatre and 
 came out into the soft dusk of the autumn after 
 noon, whether he was not very much in love 
 with this strange, wild, pitiful creature, whose 
 restless, throb b ing life beat against the calm of 
 her home. 
 
 In his uncertainty, and his pleasure in her 
 pleasure, and the charm of stolen excitement, 
 he was almost tender to her. very kind to her. 
 Rachel thought. He could not help telling her. 
 too. how lovely he thought her face was. "anl 
 those little soft rinxs of hair. Rachel, round 
 your temples, are so pretty ! 
 
 Rachel grew scarlet. No one had ever said 
 such a thin-2 to her. She trembled a little, and 
 looked at him with such beautiful, appealing 
 eyes, that Roger said more of the same nature. 
 He spoke of the happiness it was to be near 
 her, and how much he hoped that in the future 
 she would not forget him ( " Forget thee ? 
 Why. Roger. I have known thee all my life. 
 How could I forget thte?" she said, simply) 
 and he observed that life for him had not muc-h 
 to offer now. He had loved, but that was in 
 his youth. There had been a girl once But 
 he would tell her about that some other time. 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 175 
 
 He would only say now that he had suffered as 
 few men ever had suffered (though "she " was 
 entirely unworthy, as he afterwards discovered 
 when she married some one else). But that was 
 all in the past, he told Rachel, and he felt that 
 the ashes of memory might kindle again if she 
 would but be his friend. 
 
 Upon reflection, afterwards, Roger felt that 
 all this had been very unwise. Not that he had 
 committed himself in any way : on the contrary, 
 he had given Rachel to understand that although 
 his heart, buried in those ashes of memory, was 
 capable of being kindled, it was with no warmer 
 flame than friendship. " But girls are so silly ; 
 they re always misunderstanding things," he 
 thought guiltily. And so there were times dur 
 ing the next week, while the remembrance of 
 this indiscretion was fresh, that he tried to undo 
 his words by being a little less than friendly; 
 such an attempt, however, was always followed 
 by a burst of pity for her, and then admiration, 
 and then something strangely like tenderness. 
 As for her, every word he so rashly said that 
 afternoon went deep into her heart, and no tem 
 porary coldness in him could make her forget 
 them. 
 
 In the excitement and pleasure of the play Ra 
 chel lost sight of everything else. Her gladness 
 made the whole world seem loving and lovable. 
 
176 AT WHOSE DOGE? 
 
 "Oh, Roger," she said, "it was beautiful! 
 Let s come again." 
 
 "We can come every Saturday afternoon, if 
 you only will," he answered eagerly, "and it 
 will be better each time, and Friend Townsend 
 and your aunt will see that it does n t do any 
 harm." 
 
 Rachel s face fell. "I had forgotten them," 
 she said. And when Roger left her at the sun 
 dial, and she hurried through the garden to the 
 big, silent house, there was no defiance in her 
 heart ; nothing but frightened dismay and peni 
 tence. 
 
 The lamps were not lighted in the hall, only 
 the faint September twilight struggled in 
 through the funlike window over the front door, 
 but Rachel could see the disapproval on her 
 aunt s face. Sarah Townsend was standing on 
 the lowest step of the staircase, waiting to speak 
 to her niece, before going into the dining-room 
 to see that the candles were lighted for tea. 
 She was fresh from her simple toilet-table ; in 
 the clear, fine folds of her kerchief were some 
 rose-geranium leaves, and the spotless muslin of 
 her cap rested upon the shining smoothness of 
 her gray hair. Her exquisite, fragrant neat 
 ness was in sharp contrast to Rachel s flushed 
 face; rebellious curls were blown across the 
 girl s eyes and above the brim of her bonnet; 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR! 177 
 
 her shawl, too, was awry, and she had torn one 
 glove as she tried to pull it off. 
 
 "I hoped," said Sarah gravely, "thee would 
 come out by an earlier train." 
 
 "I told thee I was coming at five," Rachel 
 answere d, with the quick thought that perhaps 
 her aunt had missed her. " If thee had told me 
 that thee wanted me, I"- Then she stopped 
 abruptly, realizing that she could not have come 
 before. "Why did n t thee tell me? Thee 
 knows, aunt Sarah, the only thing in the world 
 I want to do is just to please thee!" Confes 
 sion was trembling upon Rachel s lips. 
 
 "I want thee to want to come, Rachel," 
 Sarah said simply, and then with her gentle 
 footfall she went into the dining-room, and 
 standing at the narrow sideboard, with its slen 
 der carved legs and inlaid doors and drawers, 
 she began to light the candles in four tall can 
 dlesticks. Rachel followed her, with that feel 
 ing of aggravation which comes when trying to 
 talk to a person who is walking away from one, 
 and with an instant resolution to be heard. 
 Sarah had lighted a spill at the blue flames of 
 the apple -wood fire, and was slowly touching the 
 candle-wicks with it. Its delicate glow shone 
 on her serious face. She looked up at Rachel. 
 
 " At least thee knows it does not please me 
 to see thee so untidy," she said. 
 
178 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 "Of course thee thinks I would n t have come 
 if thee had said thee wanted me," Rachel cried; 
 "and I couldn t help the wind blowing." 
 
 "If thee cannot speak respectfully thee can 
 at least be silent," Sarah answered calmly. 
 Then with her quiet step she again passed the 
 girl and went into the parlor, grieved in her 
 kind, just heart at the antagonism in Rachel s 
 voice. And Rachel, in her small, orderly 
 room, gave no thought to repentance, but lived 
 over again the excitement of the afternoon, and 
 Roger s kindness in taking her, and the sound 
 of his voice in those new words he spoke. "I 
 will go again "she said to herself . And she 
 did. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The miserable consciousness of deceit can 
 not be entirely escaped even in the height of 
 enjoyment, and the theatre never seemed so 
 pleasant to Rachel again. Indeed, except that 
 it gave her Roger s companionship, upon which 
 she was more and more dependent, she would 
 not have cared to go; and even his companion 
 ship did not persuade her more than two or 
 three times, after which her efforts to escape the 
 stings of conscience were very apparent. 
 
 Remorse began to stain all her interests, and 
 even her few pleasures. Remorse is a very 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 179 
 
 dreadful pain to the young. They have not the 
 experience of years of wrong-doing to teach 
 them that there will come times of ease from 
 that weight and ache below the breast-bone, 
 that sick feeling of remembrance intruding upon 
 their happy and forgetful moments; still less 
 can they grasp the relief of hoping that remorse 
 may end altogether. Rachel, for mere pain of her 
 sin, sinned again to forget the pain. She was 
 only happy with Roger, but the last expedition 
 to the theatre left her more unhappy than be 
 fore. She was strangely restless ; she took long 
 walks alone, simply for occupation, or hurried 
 into the city and out again for no other purpose 
 than to divert her thoughts from her disobedi 
 ence. She went over and over in her mind 
 terms in which she might confess what she had 
 done for it would be such a relief to confess ! 
 But the thought of her aunt s dismay, which 
 would have in it no surprise, made the child 
 shrink back into herself. 
 
 Sarah Townsend saw the restlessness with 
 concern, but she could have no conception of 
 its redeeming cause. Yet it was not until one 
 November afternoon that she spoke of it to her 
 husband. 
 
 " I have not wanted thee to think less well of 
 the child than thee does, Joseph," she ended 
 anxiously, "and so I have not told thee that I 
 
180 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 was troubled about her ; sometimes I think thy 
 judgments are almost harsh, because thy ideal 
 is so high. But it shows such unrest, this run 
 ning about so much. She ought to wish to be at 
 home. Home is the Lord s place for a modest 
 young woman ; it is an unregenerate and shallow 
 mind which demands constant recreation." 
 
 u Yes, yes, that is true," Friend Townsend 
 answered. He rose, and began to walk ner 
 vously about the room. "It must be stopped," 
 he said. "We must remember her heritage 
 
 O 
 
 from her grandfather, and insist upon a quieter 
 life and a contented mind. I am glad young 
 Eoger Livingstone has gone in town. Sarah! 
 thee does not think she sees him there?" 
 
 He paused beside her chair in sudden anxiety. 
 
 "Oh, Joseph, no!" she cried, "how can thee 
 think of such a thing ! It is only the restlessness 
 of youth which seeks any occupation but duty. 
 A woman of thy family could not so forget her 
 self." With all its gentleness, there was a calm 
 pride in Sarah s face as she said this. "But we 
 must stop her going into the city so much; that 
 impulsive, inconsequent nature of hers must be 
 trained to self-control. Will thee speak to her, 
 or shall I?" 
 
 "Oh, thee, thee," Joseph said. "But, Sarah, 
 why did thee not put a stop to it long ago? " 
 
 "Because," she answered, sadly, "there are 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 181 
 
 so many commands to give. I have to reprove 
 her so often. She does not know how much I 
 dread to find fault ; and she is so ready to be 
 angry ! It seems to alienate her, too, and make 
 her more unloving, when I do admonish her. 
 She cannot see that it is only because I love 
 her that I do it, but thee knows I love her, 
 Joseph?" 
 
 The wistful tremor in her even voice gave her 
 husband a shock of pain. 
 
 "She has an evil nature, "he said angrily, "if 
 she can bear to make thee grieve." 
 
 Yet, as they sat waiting for Rachel to come 
 home from a long walk in the cold, gray after 
 noon, his heart melted toward the child; and 
 when at last she entered the quiet room, he rose 
 and left it, though in a silence she thought 
 stern. By himself in the hall, he struck his 
 hands together with a gesture strangely unlike 
 his usual calm. "Poor Rachel," he said, "poor 
 child!" His head sank upon his breast as he 
 walked restlessly about. Joseph Townseiid was 
 remembering many things. 
 
 Rachel was in a softened mood when she came 
 into the parlor. In her walk along the river 
 path she had been thinking that, after all, life 
 might be very beautiful if there were love in it; 
 and Roirer loved her ! She was sure of that. 
 
 & 
 
 Yes, a girl might be very glad to be alive, if 
 
182 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 there were love in life, and one tried to be good, 
 and she meant to be good hereafter. Of 
 late she had been living in a dream of Roger, 
 into which the real man had not entered. She 
 had not noticed his efforts at commonplace 
 friendliness, for they were so genuine there could 
 be no sting in them, and beside they alternated 
 with that talk about friendship which is such 
 subtile love-making. It needed something sharp 
 to pierce the mist in which her own construction 
 of his looks and words had wrapped her. That 
 afternoon, in the glow of content about her heart, 
 she forgot for a little while her remorse; and 
 when she remembered it all, her contrition was 
 subtly pervaded by her joy. 
 
 "Rachel," Sarah said, in her low, even voice, 
 glancing at the girl, who stood resting her fore 
 head on the edge of the mantelpiece and idly 
 unfastening her bonnet, "thy uncle and I feel 
 that thy taking such long walks, and going so 
 often into town for no purpose, is but idling 
 away thy time, and we think it best for thee to 
 put a stop to it. We need not discuss it, but 
 just remember what I say." 
 
 Rachel did not speak, and her aunt, thinking 
 it was sullen acquiescence, added, "It is for thy 
 own good; we are sorry to cross thee." 
 
 The pleading in Sarah s tone touched the child ; 
 an impulse of love and repentance and happiness 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 183 
 
 sent the tears brimming into her eyes. "Oh, 
 aunt Sarah," she said, "I won t do anything 
 thee doesn t want me to, but but I have; 
 and I am so sorry! " 
 
 Sarah Townsend looked up at her with sud 
 den tenderness and hope. "If thee is really 
 sorry it will be easy for thee to please us, my 
 dear." 
 
 At that unusual, almost unknown word, Ra 
 chel s reserve gave way. She flung her bonnet 
 on the floor and sank upon her knees beside her 
 aunt, hiding her face in Sarah s lap. It seemed 
 to her that she had begun her confession; and 
 she was already comforted, and restored in her 
 own eyes ; she did not realize that confession is 
 relief, not remission. 
 
 "It isn t just the going in town," she said, 
 her voice shaken with tears. "I have done 
 wrong, aunt Sarah. Oh, I have been so wicked 
 so wicked ! Thee can never, never, never 
 
 \orgive me ! 
 
 Scenes like this seemed to Sarah Townsend 
 to lack genuineness. It was not necessary to be 
 dramatic. "Thee must not throw thy bonnet 
 on the floor, Rachel," she replied calmly, "and 
 thee must be more composed. Instead of cry 
 ing, just make up thy mind to be a good girl." 
 
 But Rachel could not check her impetuous 
 remorse, "I did not think it was really wrong 
 
184 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 when I did it. I do not believe I stopped to 
 think at all. Oh, aunt Sarah, aunt Sarah, I 
 am so wicked! I have been going into town 
 and and meeting Roger, and" 
 
 Sarah put her hands on the girl s shoulders 
 and lifted her with a sharp push. 
 
 "What does thee mean, Rachel?" she said. 
 
 At the change in her voice, Rachel knelt up 
 right, brushing her hair back from her startled 
 eyes, and looking wonderingly at her aunt. 
 
 "What does thee mean about Roger Living 
 stone?" Sarah repeated, with something which 
 was almost terror in her tone. 
 
 "Oh, aunt Sarah," the girl faltered, trying 
 to hide her face on her aunt s knees, but held 
 back by the relentless hands, "I have been to 
 the theatre with Roger, that s all." 
 
 "All! " Sarah exclaimed, half with relief and 
 half with indignant protest. 
 
 "Yes," Rachel said, covering her face with 
 her hands and sobbing; "yes, that s what I 
 went in town for, three afternoons last month." 
 
 Sarah could not speak ; she felt almost faint. 
 She did not see that Rachel had put her heart 
 into her hands for good or ill ; only the deceit, 
 the disobedience, the dismay at Roger s influ 
 ence, pressed upon her. She bent her sweet, 
 stern face upon her breast and groaned. 
 
 Rachel shivered. "Oh, I am so sorry, I 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 185 
 
 am so sorry. I will be good after this, always. 
 I will be good!" 
 
 "Perhaps thee cannot be good, Rachel," Sa 
 rah said in a broken voice, speaking involunta 
 rily her thought that it might be that the child 
 was not altogether responsible for this warped 
 moral nature; and that perhaps, too, her own 
 severity, which had seemed a duty, had but made 
 things worse. "Thee has deceived us as well 
 
 & 
 
 as disobeyed us," she said sadly, and paused, 
 but Rachel did not speak; "and thee can find 
 pleasure in the companionship of such a man as 
 Roger Livingstone, thee, Joseph s niece! " 
 
 Rachel rose, the softness frozen, the tender 
 ness bitter. "I have deceived thee, but I am 
 sorry. I have asked thee to forgive me. I am 
 sorry. I don t see what more I can say." She 
 had that feeling, which often comes with con 
 fession, that by confession the sin is atoned 
 for; and with it a sense of injury, almost anger, 
 that her listener should feel surprise or grief. 
 She resented Sarah s dismay as unjust and 
 cruel. "I ve told thee about it; I don t see 
 what else I can do," she said sullenly, tying the 
 fringe of her gray shawl into knots, and never 
 lifting her eyes to her aunt s face. "There is 
 nothing wrong in being glad to see Roger. If 
 he d been welcome here, I need n t have seen 
 him anywhere else, and and I like to be 
 with Roger." 
 
186 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 Sarah looked at her for a moment without 
 speaking; then she said abruptly, " Rachel, has 
 Roger asked thee to marry him ? I ask thee, 
 though I am not sure that thee will tell me 
 the truth." Sarah was quite calm now, but 
 her mind was confused between distress at this 
 foolish defiance, and the far deeper grief of the 
 girl s deceit. Rachel s lips parted and then 
 closed again. She hung her head in silence. 
 "Answer me, Rachel." 
 
 But Rachel could not speak. 
 
 "Does thee mean," Sarah said incisively, 
 "that thee cares for a man who does not care 
 for thee? And that, to be with him, thee has 
 been willing to deceive and disobey thy uncle 
 and aunt? thee has taken a lie upon thy soul? 
 Rachel, I have known that thee did not love us, 
 and did not cheerfully obey us, but I never knew 
 that thy heart was filled with deceit, and that 
 thee had not the modesty of the young women 
 of thy family. Does thee think we can ever trust 
 thee again? " 
 
 Rachel stood without any words, trembling 
 and panting like some wounded animal. She 
 had no thought of self-defense ; it was only pain. 
 
 "Thee may go to thy room," Sarah said after 
 a long silence; "thy uncle and I will try and 
 decide what had best be done." 
 
 Without a word Rachel turned and fled out 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 187 
 
 into the hall and up the stairs. She caught a 
 glimpse of her uncle walking calmly up and 
 down between the tall white lilies in Sarah s 
 conservatory. He would have to be told ! She 
 scarcely seemed to breathe until she reached 
 her own room, and shut and locked the door, 
 and then leaned against it for support. Her 
 heart was pounding in her throat; her eyes 
 were blurred and stinging, but without tears. 
 She heard the parlor door open and close, a-nd 
 knew that Joseph was listening to the story of 
 her guilt. 
 
 "I cannot bear it! " she said aloud; "no; no: 
 I cannot bear it." 
 
 A gleam. of joy came to her in the thought 
 that it could not be borne ; it meant escape from 
 intolerable pain, though she could not yet see 
 by what means. Her mind even darted forward 
 to contemplate a time of peace, and she vaguely 
 thought of a day when she should look back 
 upon this misery But no, it was too terrible 
 ever to be looked back upon ! Pity for herself 
 made her sob aloud, and without knowing that 
 she was only choosing the lesser anguish she 
 began to say, "It is all because they are angry 
 about Roger." She could not face the truth, that 
 her pain and theirs was because of her deceit. 
 It was a little easier to say, " They are angry that 
 Roger should care for me." By and by a means 
 
188 AT WHOSE DOORf 
 
 of escaping from pain by action began to grow 
 clear to her. She would go and tell Roger. In 
 her proud, innocent heart, Sarah s assertion that 
 she cared for a man who did not care for her 
 left no sting, save the bitterness that her aunt 
 should have said it. 
 
 "I ll tell Roger," she said over and over 
 again to herself, for his very name comforted 
 her. 
 
 V. 
 
 The warm, fragrant air of the conservatory, 
 and the silent beauty of Sarah s stately lilies, 
 had made Joseph Townsend less restless. He 
 almost forgot his anxiety about Rachel, and 
 when he came into the parlor he was greatly 
 startled and alarmed to find his wife hiding her 
 face in her arms upon the table, her quick 
 breath showing that she was in tears. 
 
 "Tell me, Sarah! " he said. But it was some 
 moments before she could speak, and then she 
 said brokenly: "Joseph, Rachel has been de 
 ceiving us. She has confessed it, though she is 
 not really repentant. Think how we have failed 
 in our duty to her, if such sin is possible in the 
 poor child! " Then she told him, faltering with 
 grief and shame, of the deception; but, with a 
 tender instinct to spare Rachel, she said nothing 
 of what she felt to be the girl s infatuation for 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 189 
 
 Eoger Livingstone. After all, that was the least 
 important. "But, Joseph," she ended, "think 
 how far we have let her drift from us, that she 
 could deceive us! Oh, I have sinned in this; 
 it is my fault not Kachel s. She does not 
 love us, after all these years, but it is because 
 I have been unworthy of the charge of one of 
 His little ones!" 
 
 He tried to comfort her and tell her she was 
 wrong, but for once the brave, silent woman 
 was broken ; she would not listen, and by and by 
 went to her own bedroom, pacing up and down 
 the floor in despairing condemnation of herself. 
 Her heart ached for Rachel, yet it did not occur 
 to her to go and comfort the child; indeed, she 
 would have felt it wrong to have seemed to 
 excuse the sin too readily; but, even had it 
 occurred to her, it was too late. 
 
 Rachel s vague purpose of telling Roger had 
 assumed a definite form. There was a train 
 into town that she could take which would make 
 it possible for her to see the young man before 
 he went out for the evening. And she would 
 tell him all about it, and he he would tell her 
 how to act! She had a confused thought of 
 finding a place to board and some work to do, 
 but underneath this purpose was the wordless 
 conviction that Roger would take care of her. 
 She did not think, "He will ask me to marry 
 him;" she only felt it. 
 
190 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 At last she rose from crouching against the 
 door, and with trembling little hands put on 
 her dove-colored bonnet, and folded a soft shawl 
 about her shoulders. Then she opened the door 
 and stood for a moment listening, her eyes di 
 lating and her breath coming quickly. There 
 was no sound except the faint snapping of the 
 fire in one of the lower rooms. The hall was 
 quite dark in the early twilight, and the shad 
 ows hid her as she crept downstairs; her fingers 
 shook when she turned the big brass knob and 
 opened the front door. In another moment she 
 had closed it stealthily behind her, and stood 
 alone in the gray chill of the November even 
 ing. 
 
 She looked back once, when she reached the foot 
 of the steps, not hesitating in her purpose, nor 
 with any relenting tenderness, but with the habit 
 of a love which has been repressed and misun 
 derstood. The blinds had not been drawn, and 
 she could see Joseph sitting with his gray head 
 bowed upon his hand ; his spectacles were folded 
 across the pages of a book which was upon a 
 little round table at his side; Sarah Townsend s 
 white knitting-work lay just as she had put it 
 down when she began to reprove Rachel; the 
 room looked so warm and peaceful, her uncle 
 sat so quietly watching the fire, his face hidden 
 by his hand, that a wave of bitterness swept 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 191 
 
 over the child. "What does he care if I am, 
 unhappy? " she thought; "as soon as the lamps 
 are lighted he 11 read again." Oh, if they only 
 had loved her she already thought of her life 
 with them as in the past she could have been 
 so good ! but they would never trust her or love 
 her again ! For an instant she forgot that her 
 anger was for Eoger s sake. 
 
 She turned and ran swiftly through the gar 
 den ; her dress caught on the broken branch of 
 a rosebush, and she stopped to loosen it, prick 
 ing her slender fingers till they bled. She found 
 herself suddenly crying ; it was snowing softly, 
 and she was cold, and everything hated her. 
 
 The rush and tumult of the flying train 
 drowned her thoughts. She was half dazed 
 when she reached the city, but in the short ride 
 to Roger s rooms she began to think how she 
 should tell him her story. Again and again she 
 reached a certain point in it, and then seemed 
 to wait for his answer : " What ought I to do, 
 Roger? I 11 do whatever thee tells me." 
 
 She was so sure of his sympathy, and so igno 
 rant of human nature, that it was impossible for 
 her to imagine the dismay and almost repulsion 
 with which Roger, entering his small library 
 from his bedroom, saw her standing in his door 
 way, flushed and panting and almost happy. 
 
 After his first two terrible words of astonish- 
 
192 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 ment there was absolute silence for a moment. 
 Rachel s color wavered and ebbed, the terror 
 stole back into her eyes. Without a word of 
 explanation the enormity of her mistake fell 
 upon her. 
 
 "Has anyone seen you?" Roger said; and 
 then he drew her inside and closed the door. 
 "For Heaven s sake, why are you here? Has 
 anybody seen you? " His fright at his own re 
 sponsibility made him angry. Rachel s beauti 
 ful dumb eyes entreated him to understand her. 
 "Something has happened, I suppose. Tell 
 me. Oh, Rachel! you should not have come 
 here. Did you go to my office first?" 
 
 "They have found out about my going to 
 the theatre," she answered at last, slowly. She 
 had forgotten that it had been her own con 
 fession. It seemed to her that she had been 
 trapped into telling her aunt. "They are very 
 angry, and they will never trust me again. 
 Aunt Sarah said she would never trust me again. 
 So I am going to earn my own living ; and I 
 I thought thee could advise me but never 
 mind." 
 
 The pitiful quiver in her voice touched Roger, 
 but it was chivalry, not love, that it aroused. 
 
 "Rachel, dear," he said simply, "I will take 
 care of you always. You must marry me, Ra 
 chel." 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 193 
 
 But it was too late. With the first look of 
 horrified surprise on Koger s i ace the woman 
 had been born in her. She scarcely seemed to 
 hear him, and went on speaking as though he 
 had not interrupted her. She was conscious 
 only of a desire to hide from him that she had 
 depended upon him. "I mean to do some kind 
 of work. I don t know what, yet. But I can t 
 live at Uncle Joseph s any more. So I thought 
 if thee could tell me some place where I could 
 board I have a little money - But thee 
 needn t trouble, Eoger." 
 
 Koger drew a long breath. After all, it 
 would never do. It was folly to have asked her 
 to marry him; and Eachel had had too much 
 sense to notice his words. 
 
 44 Why, of course I 11 help you, Rachel," 
 he said, in a troubled way; "only, honestly, I 
 don t see how I can. Why, Rachel, don t you 
 understand? It wouldn t do." 
 
 "Thee needn t trouble," she said again, 
 vaguely. 
 
 "But it isn t that it is any trouble," he ex 
 plained. "You know I wouldn t care how 
 much trouble it was, only, what would be the 
 use? You couldn t support yourself. Why, 
 my dear girl, what can you do? And, don t 
 you see, Friend Townsend would simply find 
 you, and take you home again. He has the 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 legal right." Roger was still young enough in 
 his profession to feel its awe. "Indeed, Ra 
 chel," he continued, for she did not answer, "it 
 was foolish to come to me to come in town, I 
 mean ; and it was a mistake to think you could 
 take care of yourself. I know the world, my 
 child, and you don t. Do go home, Rachel, 
 right away! " 
 
 The old simple friendliness made him very 
 much in earnest. 
 
 "Very well," she said. 
 
 "Won t you start to the station at once?" 
 Roger said eagerly. "Your carriage is at the 
 door still, and you can be at home again in an 
 hour. I mustn t go downstairs with you; it 
 would n t do, don t you know. But if you 11 
 just slip out quietly, nobody will see you, and 
 they need never know at Friend Townsend s 
 that you came here." 
 
 "I shall know," Rachel said, hoarsely. 
 
 " What? " cried Roger, impatiently, but with 
 out waiting for her answer; "you can say you 
 came in town on an errand and missed your 
 train, or or anything ! But go go ! " 
 
 In the sudden fear that some one might come 
 in and find her there, he was again growing 
 angry with her folly. 
 
 "Yes; I 11 go," Rachel answered. 
 
 "You see, I don t want any one to know that 
 
AT WHOSE DOOB? 195 
 
 you came here to see me, Rachel dear," he ex 
 plained, relenting with honest sympathy for her 
 mistake, "because, you see, it isn t well, it 
 is 11 t usual for a girl to go to a man s rooms, 
 don t you know. So you won jb mind my not 
 going downstairs with you?" 
 
 "No, I won t mind," she said, looking ab 
 sently about the warm, bright little room; "I 
 won t mind; oh, no. And I m sorry, Roger; 
 and it is n t thy fault. Only I ought not to 
 have been born, thee sees. I I think it isn t 
 anybody s fault, after all." 
 
 "What isn t? What do you mean?" he 
 said, with sudden anxiety, for she seemed so in 
 different to him and his explanations that Roger 
 felt a thrill of tenderness. 
 
 But Rachel had gone. He followed her into 
 the entry, where the one small jet of gas flared 
 and burned bluely for a moment in the draught 
 from his open door, but she did not look back. 
 He leaned over the balustrade and saw her gray 
 figure hurrying down the coil of the broad stair 
 case, and he stood there, straining his eyes into 
 the darkness and full of troubled pity, until, 
 in the lower hall, the front door opened and 
 then closed with a dull, distant jar. 
 
196 AT WHOSE DOOR* 
 
 VI. 
 
 And Eacliel? The idea of going home again 
 never presented itself to her, yet, with a dim 
 consciousness of a promise, she went blindly 
 towards the station. She forgot the carriage, 
 although it had begun to snow steadily, and in 
 her hurried uncertain walk she stumbled once 
 or twice. The second time a group of men, 
 who had sought shelter in a doorway, laughed 
 loudly, and one of them shouted a name into 
 ears too innocent to know that they were in 
 sulted. She turned and looked at them with 
 the wondering thought that any one was happy 
 enough to laugh, and they were silenced. 
 
 Again the short, swift ride ; again the glare 
 of the lamp outside the little station, the pant 
 ing engine, the clouds of steam, and, through 
 all, the beating snow and the gusts of wind. 
 The station master did not recognize her, and 
 when he looked again for the one passenger 
 who had gotten out of the train, she had van 
 ished. 
 
 She left the road, which ran between leafless 
 hedges, and, climbing down a gravelly bank, 
 hurried across a field towards the river. "If 
 I can only just be quiet and think," she said 
 again and again; "if I can only be quiet." 
 She walked aimlessly about the wide, white 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 197 
 
 meadow, trying to silence the tumult in her 
 brain which seemed actual noise. She even put 
 her hands up to her ears once, and stood still, 
 repeating, "I must think." After a while she 
 tripped upon the twisted root of a locust-tree, 
 and, through sheer exhaustion, did not rise, but 
 sat leaning against its rough trunk. "I ll 
 think now," she said to herself, and hid her face 
 in her hands, for the darkness and the storm 
 began to terrify her. One word, repeating and 
 repeating itself, had made this clamor in her 
 mind. 
 
 "Oh, yes, yes," she said, as though answer 
 ing it, "yes, I will die; I must; but I don t 
 know how. Oh, if God would only kill me; 
 He might be as kind as that ! 1 have always 
 been so unhappy, and it would be such a little 
 thing to let me die! But I have prayed and 
 prayed, and yet I go on living. Why can t He 
 let me die instead of some sick person who 
 has friends?" 
 
 As this thought worked itself out in her 
 mind, she heard, above her own sobs, and above 
 the soft, swift rush of the river, the far-off 
 rumble of a train of cars. 
 
 Then, suddenly, it all came to her, how easy 
 escape was, how simple ! A great calm settled 
 down upon her. She lifted her face with a be 
 wildered smile. The snow had caught in the 
 
198 AT WHOSE DOOR? 
 
 wet tangle of her dark hair, and blew against 
 her small, pitiful lips with faint, cold touches. 
 Here was the way out of all the pain ; she need 
 not pray for it to come to her ; she could take it. 
 
 She rose, steadying herself upon her tired 
 feet, and began to walk back across the field 
 towards the railroad. She found herself won 
 dering why anybody was alive when it was so 
 easy not to be. She laughed, under her breath, 
 to think how she had prayed for escape when all 
 the while the river had been slipping by, and 
 this other way invited her. And then her mind 
 fastened upon the idea that she was dying for 
 some one else, some unknown, dearly loved sick 
 person. A curious pagan instinct of giving a 
 life in exchange for a life, sprang up in this mo 
 ment of primal simplicity into which her soul 
 slipped at the thought of death. She would die, 
 and some one else should live. The passion of 
 sacrifice entered into the thought of death and 
 hid the pitiful selfishness of her purpose, a pur 
 pose which was only childish impatience with 
 present pain. 
 
 When she reached the steep embankment 
 again, she took off her bonnet, and, with the 
 hardly acquired habit of care for her clothing, 
 folded her shawl about it, placing them beneath 
 a tree. Then she climbed the gravelly slope and 
 stood upon one of the tracks; the snow beat in 
 
AT WHOSE DOOR? 199 
 
 her face, and the wind twisted her wet skirt 
 about her ankles. Again, far back among the 
 hills, came the rumble of the approaching train ; 
 she felt the jar under her feet, and then, through 
 the white blur of the storm, came the muffled 
 glare of the headlight. 
 
 In an instant the desire for death was swept 
 away. Her instinct to escape pain had been 
 only love of life in disguise. She leaped back 
 upon the other track. "Oh, I didn t mean it, 
 I didn t mean it!" she cried hoarsely. The 
 riotous wind swept her frightened voice like a 
 feather into the darkness, and as the cars rushed 
 past her down the track she stood white and 
 trembling, saying again and again: "I don t 
 want to die, I don t want to die; I didn t mean 
 it!" 
 
 She had forgotten or perhaps she did not 
 know that the other express was due. The 
 two trains thundered by each other, and left only 
 darkness and the beating snow. 
 
 If only the great silence could have explained 
 her to them ! 
 
 "She took her own life," Sarah said briefly; 
 "the child of our old age could not love us 
 enough to live for us. And it was my fault." 
 
 "I drove her to it it was my fault," Roger 
 Livingstone said, under his breath, divided be- 
 
AT WHOSE DOO2? 
 
 tween grief, and fright, and pasrionate grati 
 tude that no one but himself knew of the inter 
 view in his rooms that last night. But this 
 terrible conviction faded and he came after a 
 while to think, very honestly, that he had loved 
 her, and she had refused him. "She would 
 not listen to me when I asked her to marry 
 me ! Oh, if she had cared for me I could have 
 saved her, and now she has broken my heart ! 
 
 "It was my fault, it was my fault!" Joseph 
 Townsend said; " I ought to have understood 
 her. We tried to make her good in our way, 
 when she had a right to her own nature. But I 
 ought to have understood! " 
 
A FOUKTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE post-office at Pennyville was at the foot 
 of the long hill up which Main Street climbed 
 a little way, and then stopped as though to take 
 breath and look back upon itself. After that, 
 the street melted into a country road which wan 
 dered between the fields, and down the hill 
 to the river and the ferry, and a half dozen 
 houses which were only occupied during that 
 part of the year in which summer visitors in 
 vaded the Pennyville quiet. The houses along 
 Main Street stood close together in a friendly 
 way, and ignored as much as possible those scat 
 tered on the other side of the hill. Pennyville 
 acknowledged that the summer residents had a 
 
 O 
 
 certain value, but it looked down upon them as 
 one does look down upon merely useful things. 
 It found some slow amusement in their "airs," 
 and it was rather interested, too, to talk over 
 their various extravagances. 
 
 But really Pennyville cared little for the 
 summer residents, and the summer residents 
 
202 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 cared less for Pennyville. The village was 
 small, forty houses, perhaps, beside the tav 
 ern, which was frequented by occasional drum 
 mers with sewing- machines or gum boots, and 
 traveling photographers who exhibited enlarged 
 crayon heads ; and the dentist, who came twice 
 a year. The houses were built on very much 
 the same plan : a story and a half high, with 
 an entry which was narrow, and generally so 
 dark that one could not see the pattern of the 
 oil-cloth, which was an advantage if the oil-cloth 
 was shabby ; and each house had a shed at right 
 angles to the kitchen. All the best rooms had the 
 same cold, shut-up smell, perhaps because the 
 narrow windows were not often opened, owing 
 to a tendency to stick, which sometimes kept 
 them shut from one spring-cleaning to another. 
 
 It was the custom in Pennyville to keep the 
 parlor closed, except perhaps for the sewing 
 society or for a funeral. But, all the same, it 
 was furnished with the best the household pos 
 sessed. It generally boasted a centre table, on 
 which, standing on a wool mat, there was apt to 
 be a large lamp which waited an occasion im 
 portant enough to be lighted ; an occasion 
 was so long in coming that the oil was thick and 
 yellow in the red or green glass bowl. 
 
 There was, however, one house on Main Street 
 which had a peculiarity of its own, and gained 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 203 
 
 thereby a certain importance. This was Mrs. 
 Gedge s, and the peculiarity was a small square 
 building of one room attached to the house by 
 means of the woodshed. As for the house, it 
 was like everybody else s, but that single square 
 room, over the outer door of which was a weather- 
 beaten sign, "U. S. Post-Office," distinguished 
 it and its occupants from all the rest of the 
 world. The office was quite at the foot of the 
 hill, before the open green of the common. The 
 street bent a little to come close up to its door, 
 so that the stage-driver could hand in his mail- 
 bag without leaving his seat ; that done, the road 
 bent back, and curved off along the bank of the 
 creek, crossed a shaking wooden bridge, and 
 disappeared behind the shoulder of a hill. 
 
 Within, this small building at once con 
 fessed its purpose ; it was divided by a partition, 
 in the middle of which was a delivery window 
 surrounded by rows of pigeon holes. There was 
 a counter in the room, too, and some shelves, 
 which held immemorial green pasteboard boxes, 
 whose corners were strengthened by having strips 
 of linen pasted neatly along each angle. There 
 was writing paper in these boxes, pale pink and 
 yellow, with fine blue rulings, or perhaps a pic 
 ture in the corner of each sheet. There was a 
 very small showcase on the counter, in which 
 were tarnished bits of jewelry pasted upon 
 
204 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 yellowing cards, and some scent bottles, and 
 bottles of red and blue ink, and, of course, the 
 sober black as well ; but that was less popular. 
 The contents of the showcase had been so long 
 familiar that, with the exception of the ink and 
 pencils, no one ever thought of purchasing them. 
 Standing on the scratched and dim top of the 
 case were three jars which held red kisses and 
 white, little hard gumdrops, and fat black sticks 
 of licorice. There were two or three posters 
 on the walls of county fairs, or of the traveling 
 bell-ringers; one as recent as within two years. 
 
 In the middle of the room was a small air 
 tight stove with a chair beside it. "I would 
 have more chairs if it was mine, this post-office," 
 said Mrs. Gedge, "but it is a place for busi 
 ness, not sociality; so the government don t 
 provide chairs, and it ain t for me to seem to 
 criticise by bringing in any of my own." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge and Amanda had lived in Penny - 
 ville all their lives, and in the social life of 
 Main Street had held their unassailable posi 
 tion; but since these pigeon holes had been 
 put into the small, detached room which once 
 held Adam Gedge s cobbler s bench (twenty 
 years ago now), since that time, Mrs. Gedge 
 and Amanda had grown vastly more important. 
 They were the custodians of the United States 
 mail ; they were intrusted with public moneys ; 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 205 
 
 they had mysterious communications with Wash 
 ington ; it was reported, although carefully not 
 asserted by either mother or daughter, that they 
 had had a letter from the President ! The con 
 sciousness of their obligations and responsibil 
 ities clothed them as with a uniform. Amanda 
 Gedge carried her tall, angular form with a pre 
 cision suited to the parade-ground, and walked 
 with a military tread. Mrs. Gedge had been 
 known to put an end to a political discussion 
 which had begun around the stove while she 
 was sorting the mail, on the ground that she 
 was "connected with the administration, and it 
 was not right, to her mind, for her to be pres 
 ent when it was criticised. So, if they pleased, 
 they could step outside and talk about it." 
 Lord Salisbury could have no better excuse for 
 refusing to discuss the Queen s speech. 
 
 That was eight years ago, when Mrs. Gedge 
 was able to sort the letters herself, and hand 
 them out of the little window in the middle of 
 the pigeon holes, and so could not help overhear 
 ing comments upon the weather, or the church, 
 or, once in four years, the politics of the nation. 
 But now that pleasant and important task was 
 over; instead, she sat all day long behind the 
 partition, with her crutches beside her, and 
 her knitting in her crippled old hands, while 
 Amanda took her place at the delivery window. 
 
206 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Amanda was a trifle deaf, and, when in her offi 
 cial position, very much absorbed by her duties, 
 so that she did not often notice the discussions 
 carried on in the open space about the stove, 
 which space, Mrs. Gedge admitted, belonged 
 to the Public. Then, too, although Amanda 
 appreciated her position, her deepest thought 
 was always for her mother, and she was not so 
 apt to reflect upon what was due to her official 
 personality as to think anxiously of Mrs. Gedge s 
 health, or to plan small pleasures for the little 
 frail old woman. Still, she knew her import 
 ance, as a representative of the United States 
 Government. 
 
 It was all pathetically genuine. Amanda s 
 severe bosom had thrilled with the purest patri 
 otism when, twenty-four years before, her father 
 had enlisted. With him had gone Willie Boyce. 
 Willie had come home a year later, too sick to 
 give much thought to his old sweetheart, and 
 only able, his mind fastened on his own suffer 
 ing, to grope wearily through a few months of 
 wretched living. 
 
 Adam Gedge had never come home again. 
 Amanda did not know her father s grave, but 
 Willie s was over on the hill. It seemed to 
 belong to Amanda, for the young man s family 
 had moved away from Pennyville, and left him 
 to her. More than that, the poem on Willie s 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 207 
 
 gray slate headstone had been the one great 
 achievement of Mrs. Gedge s life, she had 
 composed it, but it only; genius had never 
 burned again. Amanda sometimes felt that 
 her father s death had been the price of the post= 
 office appointment which had come to Mrs. 
 Gedge in 64, and so she was a little more gentle 
 with the Public than was her mother. Official 
 life, Mrs. Gedge had been heard to complain, 
 did sometimes make one seem severe. And yet 
 so little had greatness really hardened her heart, 
 so patient was she with the well-meaning Public, 
 that she had several times illustrated the pa 
 ternal side of government by small indulgences, 
 such as delaying the mail-bag for a letter which 
 she knew was being written by a slow but anx 
 ious correspondent. It was quite an ordinary 
 thing, too, for her to give a stamp to a customer 
 who had chanced to leave his purse at home, 
 and when he remembered his penny debt, he 
 was always silenced by magnanimous refusals 
 to recognize such paltry obligation ; the deficien 
 cies caused by such governmental generosity 
 gave Amanda many arithmetical difficulties, 
 and lessened their already slender income. But 
 neither Mrs. Gedge nor Amanda begrudged 
 that ; they liked to be kind to the Public, they 
 said to each other. Their inconvenience was 
 noblesse oblige, and to hold back the wheels 
 
208 A FOURTH CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 of government was but the consideration of the 
 powerful for the weak. Yet such is the in 
 gratitude of that capricious body which they 
 so indulged that there had been more than one 
 irritated protest heard in the open space before 
 the delivery window. To be sure, such protests 
 had always come from the summer residents, 
 "and," said Mrs. Gedge, comforting her daugh 
 ter, whose elderly face was flushed, and whose 
 eyes glittered with tears, "you really can t ex 
 pect anything else of such people, Amanda! " 
 
 "Well, I must say it was unreasonable," 
 Amanda agreed. "Mr. Hamilton knows that 
 we have to consider the Public, but he says he s 
 the Public, and only here six weeks in the 
 summer! I told him, said I: Mr. Hamilton, 
 Mrs. Dace wanted to send off some collars she d 
 been making for her daughter, and I knew she 
 only had a stitch to put in them. If I d sent 
 the mail-bag down by the morning stage those 
 collars would n t have been in it, and Mary Dace 
 wouldn t have got them in time for Sunday. 
 So I kept back the bag, and coaxed Oily to take 
 it down on the evening stage. Well, Mr. 
 Hamilton was just as unreasonable ! " 
 
 "You shouldn t argue with those people, 
 Mandy," objected Mrs. Gedge. "The Govern 
 ment is the only thing you ve got to consider. 
 If Mr. Hamilton don t like the way the Govern- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 209 
 
 ment serves him well, let him carry his letters 
 himself!" 
 
 "And it was nothing but a paper that was 
 delayed, anyhow," Amanda explained for the 
 third time. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge pulled her knitted shawl comfort 
 ably around her shoulders. "Of course we do 
 sell more stamps when they are here the sum 
 mer people but they are so fussy and over 
 bearing, even to us, that I don t think they are 
 worth the money they bring in. I declare, I 
 believe they think Penny ville belongs to them." 
 
 But a sense of importance will sustain one 
 under small irritations, and so these annoyances 
 did not really disturb the peaceful life in the 
 little old gray house. All that summer, which 
 was tremulous with the excitement of the great 
 campaign that was to come, Mrs Gedge sat 
 tranquilly behind the pigeon holes with her 
 knitting; or, when it was too damp to be 
 wheeled through the shed to the post-office, had 
 her chair pushed beside the kitchen window 
 so that she could see the stage draw up to the 
 door for the mail -bag, and watch the Public 
 come and go. The kitchen was such a pleasant 
 room that, save for the anxiety of feeling that 
 Amanda was bearing alone the burden of official 
 responsibility, Mrs. Gedge would have enjoyed 
 her days there. When it began to grow cool 
 
210 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 in September, Amanda potted her geraniums 
 and put them on the shelves in one of the south 
 windows, where they flourished so finely that 
 one did not have to touch the vigorous leaves 
 to notice their faint musky scent. Amanda 
 kept the stove bright with a cheerful glitter of 
 polish, and the worn "two-ply" in the centre of 
 the well- scrubbed boards gave a hint of com 
 fortable color underfoot. Over a little table 
 draped with a crazy patchwork cover were some 
 bookshelves, which held the Bible and "Pil 
 grim s Progress," and one or two such faithful 
 friends; but scarcity of books left more room 
 for the few ornaments which Mrs. Gedge had 
 long loved, and which Amanda revered because 
 she had known them in her childhood. A 
 whale s tooth and a bunch of wax grapes are 
 not awe-inspiring perhaps, but no age or famil 
 iarity can rob them of beauty if they have ever 
 worn it to childish eyes. There was a small 
 flag in a china vase on the top shelf, and 
 there was a chromo of General Grant over the 
 pantry door. The most striking expression of 
 the love of country, however, was the shed 
 door, which opened on the square grass-plot be 
 tween the house and the post-office. Adam, the 
 night before he had marched away, had, in the 
 fervor of his patriotism, run over to the paint 
 shop, and begged from Silas Goodrich three 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 211 
 
 pots of paint, and then, while Amanda and 
 Willie Boyce stood and watched him, he painted 
 the door in alternate stripes of red, white, and 
 blue. At first Mrs. Gedge was proud of it, and 
 was careful, as the paint began to flake a little, 
 to have it renewed; but a half-dozen times in 
 the last ten years she said she would have that 
 door painted a nice drab. Amanda s non-acqui 
 escence, however, it was never more positive 
 than that, still kept the colors of the Union 
 bright. 
 
 "You know you didn t see him paint it, mo 
 ther. You were upstairs. But I saw him," she 
 said, her mild brown eyes vague with memory. 
 
 "Yes, yes," Mrs. Gedge assented, growing 
 reminiscent. "I was upstairs sitting on the 
 cowhide trunk, crying. You know I wanted 
 him to take his things in your grandfather 
 Beed s cowhide trunk, and he said he could n t 
 take a trunk. My, how I cried when he said 
 he couldn t take a trunk! It seemed so poor, 
 and I did n t give up asking him to do it until 
 the last minute. And oh, how I felt, seeing 
 him go without a trunk ! It was a presentiment, 
 child. You were too young only eighteen 
 to feel it as I did. You did n t cry." 
 
 Amanda s eyes blurred at the thought of her 
 mother s grief. "No, I didn t cry in those 
 days," she said. "I didn t seem to have time 
 
212 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 to cry. I just followed him round and round, 
 and I saw him paint the door. But you were 
 always a pretty crier, mother." 
 
 "Willie Boyce stood there beside you, too," 
 Mrs. Gedge went on. "I can see him to this 
 day. He wasn t pretty, Willie wasn t, but 
 that never seemed to make any difference to 
 you. Poor Willie! He was buried with his 
 folks; that must have been a comfort to him. 
 Many s the time I ve wondered whether he 
 knows that I wrote the poem on his tombstone ? 
 It would please poor Willie." 
 
 But that mention of Willie Boyce turned 
 Amanda silent. She said she must run over 
 to the office, and left her mother wondering why 
 the child never would talk about her beau ; and 
 so again the question of the painting of the shed 
 door fell into abeyance. "Though, being a flag, 
 as it were," Mrs. Gedge insisted to herself, as 
 she sat before the winking embers of the stove, 
 "it does seem to bring our position in the Gov 
 ernment right into our private life." 
 
 II. 
 
 By October of that year even Pennyville had 
 stirred in its satisfied indifference, and was hear 
 ing the voice of the nation instructing and sug 
 gesting and contradicting itself. The voting 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 213 
 
 population listened, with a sort of slow amuse 
 ment, to the men who came to tell them that 
 their party had outlived its usefulness, and to 
 entreat them to "save the country." In all these 
 years Pennyville had never been so near hold 
 ing political opinions. It was really very in 
 teresting. Even Mrs. Gedge said that if they 
 were true, the things that were said about the 
 party in power, she hoped Government would 
 turn them out; but she regretted this indiscre 
 tion afterwards. 
 
 "It isn t for us to express an opinion, child," 
 she told Amanda; "though, of course, they are 
 all anxious to know what we think." 
 
 Amanda made some vague reply. She was 
 less interested than usual in her own greatness. 
 These October days brought the anniversary of 
 Willie Boyce s death, and her mind kept wan 
 dering to that mound over on the hillside. She 
 remembered, with a wonderfully pitiful love, 
 his weary indifference to her in the weeks that 
 he lay dying. "Willie was sick," she said to 
 herself many times, and never thought of being 
 hurt; it only made her love him more. But 
 no doubt her abstraction made her less careful 
 about the letters ; she dropped one on the floor 
 at the midday distribution, and did not notice it 
 until evening. Then she slipped a shawl over her 
 head and ran across to Mr. Goodrich s with it. 
 
214 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 "It s lucky it wasn t for that Hamilton 
 man," Mrs. Gedge asserted, rather contemptu 
 ously; "he d have made a fuss about it, you 
 can better believe." 
 
 As for Silas Goodrich, anything so important 
 as the arrival of a letter made the delay of an 
 hour or a day a very small matter; it had come, 
 and that was all he cared about. He never 
 dreamed of finding fault. 
 
 The next day was the day that Willie Boyce 
 had died, and in the afternoon Amanda went 
 up to the graveyard with a wreath of immor 
 telles, which she had dyed pink and blue and 
 vivid green. She leaned it against the slate 
 headstone, and then knelt down, and with her 
 handkerchief carefully wiped a piece of glass 
 set into the slate to cover a faded tintype of a 
 consumptive young man in a soldier s uniform. 
 Amanda looked at the picture long and wist 
 fully. Some day, when she had saved the 
 money, she was to pay ten dollars and have 
 a crayon copy made of this tintype. She had 
 decided to do this a dozen years ago, when a 
 traveling "picture man," passing through the 
 village, had suggested it to her. Ten dollars is 
 not a large sum to save in twelve years, and it 
 had several times been reached, but just as the 
 last dollar or dime was added to the little fund, 
 there was always some call for it. Her mother 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 215 
 
 needed a wheeled chair, or a new cooking-stove 
 must be bought, or the re-shingling of the roof 
 was absolutely necessary; and so the cold closed 
 parlor of Mrs. Gedge s house was still without 
 a crayon. 
 
 Amanda, kneeling, picked away some dead 
 leaves of the myrtle on the mound, and then 
 scraped a flake of lichen from the inscription. 
 She knew the lines by heart, but she always 
 read them over with unfailing pride for her 
 mother as well as tenderness for Willie. 
 
 "William P. Boyce," it ran, "died for his 
 country," and then the date, followed by the 
 verse which Mrs. Gedge had composed : 
 
 " Oh, traveler, whoever you may be, 
 Take warning and advice by he 
 Who lies beneath this tomb. 
 He went to war and died, 
 And now in paradise is glorified. 
 Mourned by his friends." 
 
 "Mourned by his friends," Amanda repeated; 
 and then she stooped and kissed his name. 
 
 After that she went home. She was very 
 silent that evening, and her mother was fiill of 
 small devices to cheer her. She told her how 
 Mr. Hamilton s John had come down to see 
 whether a letter he expected in the noon mail 
 might not have been overlooked. 
 
 "He said that Mr. Hamilton expected it 
 
216 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 yesterday. I told him no, of course it hadn t 
 been overlooked. Snch a time about a letter ! 
 Well, he s gone, anyway, Mr. Hamilton has. 
 I wonder he did n t stay over until to-morrow 
 to get his letter." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge did not mind the severity of her 
 sarcasm if only Mandy would cheer up a little. 
 ("My goodness, and her beau dead nearly 
 twenty- five years! ") 
 
 "Yes," she proceeded, "he got a telegraph, 
 a man on a horse brought it, and then I 
 saw him driving off like a crazy man. Those 
 summer people have no sort of consideration for 
 their beasts; he made those horses fly." 
 
 Amanda looked uneasy. "I don t think I 
 could have missed his letter," she said; "but I 
 guess I 11 just run over and give a look into the 
 bag. Don t you remember that time Mrs. 
 Ainu s letter stuck in the bag?" 
 
 She took a lamp, shielding its clear flame 
 with a large bony hand as she walked through 
 the draughty shed to the post-office. The mail- 
 bag, lean and empty, hung between two chairs, 
 awaiting the morning letters. Amanda put her 
 hand in it and felt all around. "Of course 
 there s no letter," she said to herself, indig 
 nantly. "It s just as mother says, they do 
 fuss so ! " She stopped to see that the fire was 
 quite out in the stove, and then, with the severe 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 217 
 
 smile with which she always tried to check 
 levity unsuited to the place, she opened one of 
 the candy jars and abstracted two gumdrops. 
 "There! I guess mother and I can have some; 
 they re getting stale." And as they had been 
 purchased in June, Mrs. Gedge accepted the 
 extravagance and indulgence with but little 
 protest. 
 
 Afterwards, looking back upon it, that even 
 ing seemed to Amanda Gedge wonderfully 
 pleasant. She set the table and made the toast 
 and tea, and her mother told her she might get 
 out a tumbler of gooseberry jam as a treat; 
 after the dishes were washed, they sat down by 
 the stove, and while Amanda mended her stock 
 ings Mrs. Gedge talked. These two quiet 
 women found life very interesting. First, of 
 course, was the consciousness of their own im 
 portance, which naturally suggested much con 
 versation. Then, too, they had all their past 
 to talk about, which, to be sure, had had its 
 sorrows : little Charles, who died when Amanda 
 was ten years old; Willie Boyce, though it 
 was only Mrs. Gedge who talked of him ; and 
 the soldier-cobbler, whose grave had never been 
 tended by wife or daughter, but which, some 
 where in the South, was marked "unknown." 
 They could speak, too, of their happiness in not 
 being obliged to draw a pension. " Government 
 
218 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 gave us our position, so we are independent," 
 said Amanda. And Mrs. Gedge acquiesced, 
 and said that a pension would have made her 
 feel like a beggar, anyway ; but not needing it, 
 being in the Government, it would make her 
 feel like a thief to have it ! Then they could 
 talk of the geraniums ; their looks as compared 
 to last year, or the year before, or many years 
 before ; and the frost ; and how long the tub of 
 butter was going to last. Yes, life was very in 
 teresting. 
 
 The next morning it rained, and was too 
 damp for Mrs. Gedge to go through the shed ; 
 so she settled herself at the kitchen window for 
 a long day s knitting. The stage came swinging 
 and creaking down the hill, and the four horses, 
 sleek and steaming with the rain, stood, with 
 much pawing and jangling of traces, in front of 
 the post-office, while the young red-faced driver, 
 knocking with the handle of his whip on the off 
 wheel, called out: "Good-morning, Handy. 
 Mail ready?" 
 
 A moment later Mrs. Gedge saw Amanda 
 hurry out with the still lean bag in her arms, 
 and hand it up to Oily Clough to put under his 
 feet on the toe -board. Oily flourished his whip, 
 nodded, went jolting over the bridge, and dis 
 appeared behind the hill. Mrs. Gedge could 
 not imagine why Amanda should stand there 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 219 
 
 bareheaded, her gaunt shoulders covered only 
 with a little square blue -check shawl, apparently 
 forgetful of the rain. She scratched upon the 
 window pane with her knitting-needles to at 
 tract her daughter s attention, but Amanda did 
 not seem to hear her, although she turned slowly 
 and went back into the office. It was certainly 
 ten minutes later before she came through the 
 
 o 
 
 shed into the kitchen. 
 
 "Why, what kept you, child?" demanded 
 Mrs. Gedge, whose curiosity never flagged con 
 cerning small happenings. 
 
 "Mother," said Amanda, "look at that!" 
 She held up a letter as she spoke. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge stretched out her hand for it 
 eagerly, and then stopped to put on her glasses, 
 so that, holding it at arm s-length, she might 
 read the address. " Arthur Hamilton, Esq., 
 Penny ville, Pennsylvania. Well, child, but 
 how did it come this time of day? Oh, it was 
 in the bag yesterday, after all?" 
 
 Amanda was quite pale ; she pushed back a 
 lock of hair from her high bleak forehead. 
 "Mother, do you know, that came day before 
 yesterday. That s the letter he was inquiring 
 after. It got shoved into one of the low pigeon 
 holes. My goodness, mother ! " 
 
 This burst of excitement really alarmed Mrs. 
 Gedge. "Why, child, you needn t be so put 
 
220 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 out. He ain t in town. And I don t know as 
 I d send it up to his house, anyhow; if he gets 
 it when he comes home, he 11 know it s been 
 delayed, and then he 11 fuss about it. I don t 
 believe I d send it, Mandy ? " 
 
 "Oh, mother, I don t hardly think that would 
 do," Amanda said. "You know the Govern 
 ment "- 
 
 "Well, perhaps so," Mrs. Gedge assented, 
 reluctantly. "Course, I wouldn t think of such 
 a thing if it was anybody else. But that man ! 
 and he s gone now, anyhow, and probably he s 
 found out what was in the letter by this time, 
 so he hasn t any need of it; and, you know, 
 he s had no experience; he don t understand 
 how a mistake could be made. Well, I don t 
 see myself, Mandy, how you could get that 
 letter into one of those pigeon holes. There, 
 it is n t any matter, child. Send it up with his 
 noon mail." 
 
 "No; I must take it," said Amanda, firmly. 
 "I 11 have to bundle you up, mother, and wheel 
 you into the office. It 11 take me an hour to 
 go and come, and the office can t be shut up all 
 that time." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge did not half like it, she said ; it 
 was not rijjht for the Government to wait on 
 
 O 
 
 Mr. Hamilton by carrying him his letters; it 
 was trouble enough to sort them out, she de- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 221 
 
 dared; but nevertheless she permitted Amanda 
 to push her wheeled chair through the shed, and 
 place her on the official side of the pigeon holes, 
 within easy reach of the stamp drawer and the 
 letter scales. If anybody wanted gumdrops or 
 writing paper they would have to help them 
 selves, and bring her the change. 
 
 Amanda put on her overshoes, which she, 
 like the rest of Penny ville, called "gums," and 
 a rusty black waterproof cloak, which was thin 
 and skinny and soaked up more rain than it 
 shed. She wore a faded straw hat with a barege 
 veil tied around its crown. Her large freckled 
 face was pale, and her anxious eyes looked out 
 from under a forehead that was creased with 
 troubled lines. Clutched tightly in the hand 
 which held her skirts very well up out of the 
 mud, was Mr. Hamilton s letter. 
 
 It had rained since before dawn, and the 
 branches of the sycamores and lindens had given 
 up almost all those few yellow leaves to which 
 they had clung since the last frost. The ground 
 on the footpaths was covered with them, and 
 the streaming air was heavy with the dank aro 
 matic scent of autumn. The wheel ruts were 
 full of running yellow water. Amanda picked 
 her way carefully, but her Congress gaiters were 
 soaked above her overshoes, and even the white 
 stockings on her lean ankles were splashed. 
 
222 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 She was glad it had not rained yesterday, she 
 said to herself; and then she thought of the 
 wreath of immortelles, ami hoped the colors 
 would n t run. She sighed as she remembered 
 the tintype set into the slate headstone under 
 the piece of glass, which to-day must be so spat 
 tered with rain that the young soldier in his 
 uniform could not be seen. How beautiful it 
 would be to have the black and white crayon ! 
 Amanda knew just where it was going to hang 
 on the parlor wall, and she had a plan about a 
 cross of purple immortelles to place above it. 
 
 By the time Mr. Hamilton s house was in 
 sight Amanda had gone through a calculation 
 as to how long it would take her, putting aside 
 five cents a week, to save up the three dollars 
 and eighty cents which the required sum still 
 lacked, granting that nothing else came to claim 
 her hoard. This calculation seemed to bring the 
 crayon nearer, and cheered her, in spite of the 
 rain and the burden upon her conscience. She 
 hurried up the driveway to the front door, which 
 was opened by John. 
 
 "Oh, Jolin," said the postmistress, out of 
 breath and embarrassed, yet holding her gaunt 
 shoulders proudly, and ignoring the way in 
 which her hair, lanky with rain, had blown into 
 her eyes; "John, this letter was overlooked. 
 You may give it to Mr. Hamilton." 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 223 
 
 John took the letter curiously. " Well, now ! 
 When did it come?" He paused to examine it 
 closely. "Yes, it s postmarked Washington. 
 Why, Miss Gedge, it s the one he was lookin 
 for two days ago. They had to telegraph him 
 to come on. Lord ! he kicked like a steer about 
 it. Postal delays, says he. Obliged to you 
 for bring-in it, miss." 
 
 Amanda did not reply ; she was gathering her 
 skirts up under her waterproof again, and shak 
 ing open her umbrella. 
 
 "You might a saved yourself," John pro 
 tested, politely; "he s fetched up in Washing 
 ton by this time; so the letter ain t needed, as 
 you might say." 
 
 Amanda nodded, and went plodding down the 
 carriage road, her tall body leaning against the 
 wind that twisted the waterproof around her 
 ankles and beat her umbrella over sidewise ; the 
 blue barege veil hung wet and straight over one 
 shoulder. A cold misgiving fastened itself upon 
 her heart. "Postal delays." And Mr. Hamil 
 ton was in Washington ; suppose he should find 
 fault, suppose it should reach the Govern 
 ment? Not but what the intimacy of their re 
 lations with the Government would make an 
 explanation simple enough; but yet it was not 
 pleasant to think that Mr. Hamilton might speak 
 to the President in some unkind way of her 
 
224 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 mother. She wished the President could know 
 how they revered him. She had never begrudged 
 her father and Willie Boyce to her country ; she 
 wished, if Mr. Hamilton did say anything, that 
 the President might understand all that; but of 
 course he could not. Probably Mr. Hamilton 
 would not think to mention her father and Wil 
 lie, even if he knew about them, and Amanda 
 tried to be just, even to Mr. Hamilton it was 
 pretty plain that he did not know, seeing that 
 he was "so unreasonable and fault-finding." 
 
 The wind suddenly twisted her umbrella, and 
 her face was wet with rain ; and then something 
 warm went rolling do ,vn her cheek. She had 
 not known that she was crying. 
 
 III. 
 
 When Amanda had put on some dry clothing 
 she hurried into the office, for there was much 
 to do before the arrival of the noon stage. 
 What with her work, and listening to Mrs. 
 Gedge s minute account of all that had tran 
 spired in her absence, she had no time before 
 the mail came to tell her mother of her anxieties. 
 Amanda listened to every word of the small 
 happenings with close attention : Sally Goodrich 
 had come in for two stamps, and her five-cent 
 piece had rolled down in that crack by the stove ; 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 225 
 
 but Mrs. Gedge had said, "Never mind, Sally, 
 you can have them just as well ; " for it was rain 
 ing, as Amanda knew, and Sally Goodrich at 
 her age she was sixty-one, if she was a day 
 could not go back in the rain just for four cents; 
 besides, the five cents was really in the post- 
 office, and if the floor should ever be raised 
 they d get it. Mrs. Gedge, having been silent 
 for an hour, talked in a steady, cheerful stream, 
 broken only by Amanda s little interjections of 
 surprise and interest. 
 
 But after dinner, which the noon delivery of 
 the mail made sometimes as late as one o clock, 
 Amanda could not help saying that she wished 
 that that letter had belonged to anybody else 
 than Mr. Hamilton. 
 
 "Oh, you take it too much to heart, child," 
 Mrs. Gedge reassured her. "Why, Mandy, 
 he s only a summer person; he 11 go away, and 
 we won t see or hear of him till next summer, 
 nor his sister either. They re a pair of old 
 maids, the two of em," said Mrs. Gedge, with 
 a chuckle, her bright black eyes snapping with 
 good-natured impatience. 
 
 "Well, mother, may be that s so," said 
 Amanda, doubtfully, "but Mr. Hamilton s John 
 took the letter, and he seemed to think Mr. 
 Hamilton was dreadfully put out about it. He 
 said that he kicked. I suppose he meant that 
 he stamped his foot." 
 
226 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge gave her cap strings a jerk. 
 "Well, what if he did? It shows he s a very 
 bad-tempered man, that s all." 
 
 "Yes; only he s in Washington, mother." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge did not seem to understand for 
 a moment, and then she suddenly looked con 
 cerned. "Well, now, Amanda, how could you 
 overlook that letter? Dear me, child, I don t 
 see how you did it. Why, if he s in Washing 
 ton, he might say something to the Government. 
 I tell you, I wouldn t like that, Amanda! " 
 
 Amanda sighed, and shook her head. "If 
 there was any excuse," she said; "but there 
 isn t. It was it was the 28th of October, 
 mother, you know; the day before the 29th; 
 and I was sort of dull. Well, I suppose I 
 couldn t write that to Washington?" 
 
 "It s a very good excuse," cried Mrs. Gedge. 
 "I d like them to know just what excuse we 
 have, if he should say anything but I don t 
 believe he will, Mandy I d like them to 
 know we didn t mean to be neerlectful." 
 
 o 
 
 The kitchen had grown dark with rain and 
 early dusk, and a chill had crept into the air in 
 spite of the crackling fire in the stove. 
 
 " Well, now, Mandy, I 11 tell you what would 
 be a good thing; better than writing," Mrs. 
 Gedge said, thoughtfully; "send a present." 
 
 "To Mr. Hunter? " said Amanda. Mr. Hun- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 227 
 
 ter was the gentleman who signed the occasional 
 communications from Washington, and to whom 
 they submitted their quarterly accounts. 
 
 "I meant the President," said Mrs. Gedge, 
 doubtfully, "but I don t know but what Mr. 
 Hunter would be better. Then, if Mr. Hamil 
 ton should presume to find fault, Mr. Hunter 
 would know that our intentions were all right." 
 
 "Oh, mother, I don t know," Amanda de 
 murred. "May be we d better not do anything. 
 May be he won t complain." 
 
 But Mrs. Gedge was positive. "No; a pres 
 ent is friendly, and he s probably a busy man, 
 being in a big post-office ; so, if he has a present 
 from us, it will be easier for him to keep us in 
 mind as being friendly." 
 
 "Well, mother, you re right, I guess. And 
 yet it seems sort of queer, don t you think? 
 And what could you send him? " 
 
 "Oh, I ve thought of that!" cried Mrs. 
 Gedge. "We can send word by Oily Clough 
 to his friend at Mercer to buy an album, a 
 blue velvet album like Sally Goodrich s, with 
 those steel trimmings and clasps." 
 
 Amanda was moved at the prospect, but sud 
 denly her face fell. "Mother, Sally s album 
 cost nine dollars and ninety-five cents," she said. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge was dismayed. "Perhaps we 
 needn t get such an expensive one?" 
 
228 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 "No; if we get any, it ought to be a hand 
 some one," Amanda said, sadly. "Well, mo 
 ther, you can may be begin to make the toast 
 for tea, and I 11 run over to the office and see 
 if we ve got the money to spare." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge was quite cheerful by that time, 
 and she chatted merrily all the evening of Mr. 
 Hunter, and his surprise and pleasure at being 
 remembered by humble officers of that Govern 
 ment to which he himself rendered more impor 
 tant but not more loyal service. 
 
 "Why, child," Mrs. Gedge said, suddenly, 
 in the middle of supper, putting down the cup 
 she had just raised to her lips, "\vhy, Mandy, 
 suppose I was to write a poem, and send with 
 it?" 
 
 Ever since Willie Boyce died, Mrs. Gedge 
 had meant to write another poem, but there had 
 been no occasion great enough to inspire her. 
 
 "Well, now, that is a good idea," Amanda 
 answered proudly. "It would be real pretty to 
 send a poem with the present." 
 
 And for the rest of the meal Mrs. Gedge 
 tried excitedly to find words that rhymed with 
 Hunter, but they were so scarce, "and not real 
 sensible," she said, that she turned to "album," 
 which was hardly more successful, although it 
 rhymed well enough with "dumb," and "come," 
 but she did not just see what words she could 
 
A FOUETH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 229 
 
 get in along the line. Amanda tried to help 
 her mother, but she sighed once or twice as she 
 heard the rain on the kitchen roof, and thought 
 of the tintype under the misty glass. 
 
 The commission was given Oily the next 
 morning. lie was to tell his friend, who was, 
 Oily said, "a traveling commission merchant," 
 to be certain, the very next time he came out 
 from Mercer to Pennyville, to bring a blue al 
 bum. If he could find one that had two flags 
 crossed on the clasp, like Sally s, he was to get 
 it, even if it cost a quarter more. He was to 
 try, however, to find one just as good as Sally s 
 for, may be, a dollar less. Oily was so hopeful 
 that his friend could economize that Mrs. Gedge 
 checked him. 
 
 "It isn t the money, Oily, that you consider 
 when you re getting a present for a friend, it s 
 the album ; it must be the best. It must be as 
 good as Sally s." 
 
 After that there were many days of expecta 
 tion, for no one could tell when Olly s friend 
 would arrive. In Mrs. Gedge s mind, the rea 
 son for the present had faded in the excitement 
 of the present itself. It had been easier, no 
 doubt, to forget the reason because Mr. Hamil 
 ton had not come home. Indeed, when, flushed 
 with triumph, on the Wednesday following the 
 second Tuesday in November, John came into 
 
230 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 the post-office for the mail, he volunteered the 
 information that very likely Miss Hamilton 
 would close the house, and join her brother in 
 Washington. 
 
 "We ll be there this winter," said John, 
 with an important air, "though of course we 
 won t get to work before the 4th of March." 
 
 This news that Mr. Hamilton might not re 
 turn was a relief to Mrs. Gedge, but still more 
 so to Amanda. She seemed to breathe more 
 freely, for, ever since John s betrayal of his 
 master s temper, she had dreaded a scene with 
 Mr. Hamilton in the post-office. "I d put 
 him out with my own hands," she had thought, 
 "rather than have mother worried." But the 
 danger was averted, and in her thankfulness 
 Amanda was reconciled to what she had come 
 to think was really a very unnecessary expendi 
 ture of money, for Olly s friend would probably 
 not be able to return any change from the nine 
 dollars and ninety -five cents which had been in 
 trusted him. 
 
 It was not until well into December that the 
 friend "got around" to Penny ville. When he 
 did, it was a great day at the post-office. He 
 came on the noon stage, and brought a large 
 package with him. Oily handed in the mail- 
 bag at the same time ; but no one could think 
 of that until the package had been opened, and 
 
A FOUETH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 231 
 
 the album, covered with rich bright blue plush, 
 very soft and deep, and indented with oxidized 
 clasps, had been displayed and admired. Every 
 one who called for a possible letter was quite 
 willing to wait a half -hour until the excited rep 
 resentatives of the Government were able to 
 attend to their duties. This willingness spoke 
 much for the good nature of the Public, as well 
 as for its patience, for neither Mrs. Gedge nor 
 Amanda confided the purpose of the album. It 
 was "a gift," they said, and with that the ad 
 miring and inconvenienced Public was forced to 
 be content. It was curious, where their official 
 relations were concerned, to see the reticence of 
 these two simple women who had not a secret 
 of their own. Their reserve was perhaps the 
 most striking indication of their pride of office. 
 The people who had not received any mail 
 lingered longest, kicking their steaming boots 
 against the little ledge about the stove, and 
 waiting, as though in the hope that a relenting 
 afterthought on the part of the postmistress 
 might create a letter. But when the last disap 
 pointed correspondent went tramping out into 
 the snow, the mother and daughter gave them 
 selves up to the contemplation of their treasure. 
 They took it back into the kitchen, and placed 
 it, with almost reverent care, on the crazy patch 
 work cover of the table ; then they touched the 
 
232 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 plush to see how soft it was, and studied the pat 
 tern on the clasps, and counted the pages. It was 
 a most exciting, a most exhausting afternoon. 
 
 Sally Goodrich came in at dusk to have a 
 look at the album. She was a little condescend 
 ing at first, but its magnificence overpowered 
 her, and she honestly confessed that it was far 
 handsomer than hers. She said that she pre 
 sumed the person it was for would be real 
 pleased? But the tentative assertion did not 
 flatter the mother or daughter into giving her 
 the information she desired. They were impa 
 tient to be alone, that they might compose the 
 letter which was to accompany the gift. 
 
 They did not, however, get at it until after tea, 
 and when they did, Mrs. Gedge could not easily 
 resign the idea of poetry ; but Hunter was not a 
 name that charmed tEe Muse. 
 
 " Oh, traveler/ " Mrs. Gedge began, " who 
 ever you may be I could use as much as 
 that of Willie s poem, Mandy? Dear ! I do 
 hate to be put out just by a name. I suppose 
 I need n t put it at the end of a line, but it 
 seems to come that way in my mind. Hum 
 hum hum Mr. Hunter ! " 
 
 They struggled over this with patient earnest 
 ness before turning to sober prose ; but at half 
 past nine a letter was at last composed, and 
 Mrs. Gedge went to bed, weary and happy, ap- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 233 
 
 palled at the lateness of the hour, and charging 
 Amanda to be careful of the album. Amanda 
 tucked it up in its box, under a sheet of tissue- 
 paper, as tenderly as though it were a baby. It 
 lay on the table at Mrs. Gedge s bedside, and 
 when Amanda got up the next morning at half 
 past five to make the fire, she found her mother 
 awake, and anxious, for a look at the beautiful 
 book before she arose. 
 
 "I can t wait till I get up, child," she said, 
 her eyes, under the full ruffle of her nightcap, 
 bright with excitement and pride. 
 
 It was hard to part with the album by the 
 noon stage, but it had to go, and the letter, 
 prim, and full of respectful assurances of re 
 gard, went with it. How the thoughts of the 
 contented donors followed it along each step of 
 its journey! Mrs. Gedge was concerned about 
 the weather; she said that she hoped the snow 
 wouldn t drift badly on the hill road; Amanda 
 would remember how Olly s father s stage had 
 upset on the hill road in the great storm? In 
 an accident like that, an express package could 
 so easily be lost, she said, anxiously. She and 
 Amanda calculated the exact moment that it 
 would reach Washington, and the earliest date 
 when an acknowledgment could be looked for. 
 
 By this time mid-December Mrs. Gedge 
 had quite forgotten Mr. Hamilton. Her life 
 
234 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 had too many pleasant and interesting things in 
 it to allow her to think about a bad-tempered 
 man, who was nothing but a summer visitor 
 anyhow. Amanda, too, had almost put aside 
 her fear, although the tintype up on the hillside 
 and the vacant spot on the parlor wall were con 
 stant reminders that propitiation had seemed 
 necessary. Mrs. Gedge did not admit that 
 the album had been propitiatory; their gift was 
 simply a pleasant courtesy to an equal, for were 
 they not both officers of the same great and 
 beneficent Government? That Mr. Hunter s 
 acknowledgment seemed long in coming could 
 not alter that fact; very likely he was away, 
 or may be there was sickness in his family, as 
 Amanda had more than once suggested. But it 
 certainly was long in coming, for the 1st of Jan 
 uary found Mr. Hunter s manners still at fault. 
 
 Yet although the post-office had forgotten 
 Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Hamilton, now that the 
 immediate excitement of the second Tuesday of 
 November was over Mr. Hamilton remem 
 bered the post-office. 
 
 "I tell you, Philip," he said one evening, as 
 he and a friend sat over their wine after dinner, 
 
 "I toll you, the Post-office Department of 
 this country needs a tremendous shaking up. 
 Yes, sir; heads have got to fall. I have a sum 
 mer house in that little place, Pennyville, you 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 235 
 
 know, up in the hills, and for all practical pur 
 poses there is no post-office there; outrageous 
 carelessness and endless inconvenience. But I 
 intend to do my part to secure a proper postal 
 service to my native land." 
 
 "At least during the summer ?" commented 
 the other man. But Mr. Hamilton ignored the 
 sarcasm. 
 
 "There s a good fellow, a good hustling fel 
 low, that I mean to have put there. William 
 Sprague you remember ? He was my substi 
 tute ; he has a ball in his leg now that belongs 
 to me. I m going to speak to Stevenson, and 
 have that job given to him. I ve always meant 
 to do something for him." 
 
 "Ah, howl respect a philanthropist!" said 
 his friend; "and how just it is that, because he 
 was your substitute in the war, the nation should 
 reward him ! And yet I thought that civil ser 
 vice reform was alluded to in your Convention ? 
 Correct me if I am wronsr." 
 
 O 
 
 "Oh, bah!" answered the other, laughing, 
 and knocking his cigar ashes off against his 
 wineglass. "Shore, we ve been out in the cold 
 for twenty-four years, and we don t propose to 
 keep away from the fire to split the straws of 
 ethics. You may consider that statement offi 
 cial, my boy." 
 
 "Is that the excuse you will give to the pres- 
 
236 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 ent incumbent when you tip him or her out? It 
 will have all the merit of truth." 
 
 "Look here, my young reformer," protested 
 the other man, "I advise you to take off your 
 kid gloves. These ideas of yours are too 
 damned fine for our humble capital. Yes, sir ; 
 they will do for Boston, and I am sure we are 
 grateful that the chaste bosom of the Boston 
 mugwump should have thrilled for us because 
 of our highly moral principles; but, my dear 
 fellow, now we have come down to business in 
 spite of our principles. We are a great deal 
 more honest than the people you helped us put 
 out, there is no doubt of that ; but we are hu 
 man. This may surprise you, as you reflect 
 upon our virtues, but we admit it human. 
 And how shall we dispose of the present incum 
 bents in Pennyville?" He rose, with a jolly, 
 rollicking laugh, straightening his shoulders, 
 and lifting his handsome head. "Why, Lord 
 bless you! offensive partisanship, to be sure. 
 Seriously, they are hopelessly inefficient; a 
 couple of old maids, who hold back the mail- 
 bags, lose a man s letters, or deliver them a 
 week after they ve arrived. Why, look here; 
 here s an instance: That letter from the Secre 
 tary about the Cincinnati matter was over 
 looked three clays. Thank the Lord, Beardsley 
 had the sense to telegraph ; he knew the Secre- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 237 
 
 tiry had written. Now, you know, that would 
 have cost me more than it is agreeable to con 
 template. I swear it was offensive partisanship. 
 Deliberate injury to a political opponent if 
 Beardsley hadn t had the sense to telegraph!" 
 He laughed, and then struck the younger man 
 good-naturedly on the shoulder. "See here, 
 Philip, don t, by the fineness of your theories, 
 make yourself unfit for practical life. Remem 
 ber what we ve got to deal with. Be as good 
 as you can, but, for the very sake of your theo 
 ries, don t be too good. Doesn t the Bible say 
 somewhere, don t be righteous overmuch ? Well, 
 a printed notice of that ought to be sent around 
 to the mugwumps! " 
 
 IV. 
 
 "It does seem," Mrs. Gedge said, when, to 
 wards the end of January, no acknowledgment 
 had come from Mr. Hunter, "it does seem as 
 though something had happened to that album." 
 
 " Well, mother, Oily saw it safe into the ex 
 press office; it must have got to Washington, 
 anyhow." 
 
 "You don t suppose," Mrs. Gedge queried, 
 in a troubled voice, "you don t think he could 
 have thought it was out of the way, two ladies 
 sending him a present ? It was in our official 
 
238 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 capacity, Amanda; I hope I know better than 
 to do it in any other way." 
 
 "My, mother! of course he understands it," 
 Amanda assured her. "It s just as I say, sick 
 ness in his family, or something, has put it out 
 of his mind. We 11 hear soon. Now don t you 
 worry; it was a nice gift, and will look pretty 
 on his centre-table, you can be sure of that." 
 They had followed the album so closely with 
 their fancy that they knew quite well how it 
 looked. Mrs. Gedge had even said that she 
 hoped his wife was not a foolish young thing, 
 who would know no more than to put other books 
 on top of it, and crush the plush. 
 
 Poor Amanda began to dread the coming of 
 the mail-bag, fo* each day there was always 
 the same hesitating question: "I suppose you 
 didn t hear to-day, Mandy? I somehow didn t 
 look for a letter to-day." 
 
 "No, mother, not to-day," and then some 
 little excuse : " lie would have had to write on 
 Monday to reach us by this mail, and Monday s 
 a real inconvenient day; " or, "I guess he s put 
 off writing till the end of the week; " or, "It s 
 the first of the month, and you know how busy 
 the post-office is; very likely he s real driven 
 with his accounts." 
 
 But day by day Mrs. Gedge s assurance that 
 she knew it was all right, of course, and that 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 239 
 
 she knew, too, in her position, "how hard it was 
 for some folks to write letters," day by day 
 such assurances grew more evidently forced in 
 their cheerfulness, and when at last the 1st of 
 February passed, and the usual official commu 
 nication from Washington failed to bring with it 
 any personal communication, Amanda said to 
 herself that she couldn t stand it. They had 
 written to the express office, and learned that 
 the package had been received and delivered, so 
 they could not even have the comfort of think 
 ing that it was lost. 
 
 Amanda s high forehead gathered new wrin 
 kles in those bleak winter days, and anxiety 
 gnawed at her heart, for the suspense was wear 
 ing upon her mother. Sometimes she thought 
 of writing to Mr. Hunter, imploring him to just 
 say that he had received the present; but how 
 could she deceive her mother, or have a secret 
 from her? 
 
 One afternoon, coming home from sewing so 
 ciety, she stopped on the bridge to look into the 
 water, and think. Some uncertain, hesitating 
 flakes were wandering through the gray air, 
 marking the hurrying stream with fine white 
 touches, then fading into its blackness. Aman 
 da s breath caught in a sob. " Oh my goodness, 
 that old album! " she said to herself. Her re 
 sentment at the album, which was surely respon- 
 
240 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 sible for Mrs. Gedge s feebleness, was only an 
 expression of her own dull ache of apprehension. 
 
 The water came racing down the wide, shallow 
 bed of the creek, leaping with tumultuous rip 
 ples over the larger stones, and sending a faint 
 continuous jar along the worn hand-rail of the 
 bridge, nicked and whittled by each generation 
 of Pennyville boys. It was freezing, and the ice 
 curved in and out along the curving shore in 
 clear and snowy lines, like wonderful onyx or 
 agate bands. Tho branch of a maple, dipping 
 into the water, had encased its twigs in a fringe 
 of icicles that jangled as they rose and fell on 
 the current. The cold dusk and the vague, un 
 certain snow seemed to Amanda the embodiment 
 of disappointment. She plucked a splinter of 
 wood from the rail on which she leaned, and 
 dropped it into the creek, watching it swirl on 
 the black water and go hurrying under the bridge ; 
 and then she went slowly home. She had made 
 up her mind to tell her mother that she believed 
 Mr. Hunter was dead. She felt sure that this 
 would be a sort of comfort to Mrs. Gedge, and 
 Amanda was willing to mourn Mr. Hunter, if 
 his demise would excuse his carelessness towards 
 her mother. 
 
 She did not propose this solution of the puzzle 
 until the next morning, and then Mrs. Gedge s 
 concern about the Sixth Auditor of the Treasury 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 241 
 
 was almost as alarming as her previous suspense, 
 so that Amanda, with a desperate feeling of not 
 knowing in which direction to turn next, made 
 haste to qualify her suggestion, or even take it 
 back altogether. 
 
 The wind was high and cold that day, but the 
 sun shone, and, feeling so much the shock of the 
 suggestion concerning Mr. Hunter, Mrs. Gedge 
 said she believed she would not get up; she said 
 the glare of the sun on the snowy roof of the 
 post-office hurt her eyes, and she d rather lie 
 in bed. 
 
 Amanda s heavy heart grew still heavier. 
 "Mother s failing," she said to herself. "I 
 guess he s well, mother," she assured her. "It 
 was real foolish for me to think he was n t. 
 Why, they d have sent us word if anything had 
 happened to him, of course. I don t know 
 what I was thinking of." 
 
 "Well, then, why don t we hear from the 
 album?" 
 
 But Amanda had nothing better to say than, 
 "Well, now, I guess we will, real soon." 
 
 "You don t think anybody thinks anything, 
 do you, Mandy? You never let on to anybody 
 Sally Goodrich or anybody that it was for 
 Mr. Hunter, and he hasn t written?" 
 
 "No, mother; no, indeed. There is n t a 
 person that guesses. Nobody but Oily saw the 
 
242 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 address, and he don t know who Mr. Hunter 
 is; he don t know but what he s a relation." 
 
 There were no demonstrations of affection be 
 tween these two ; it would not have occurred to 
 Amanda to kiss her mother, but she took her 
 little blue check shawl from about her own 
 shoulders and laid it across Mrs. Gedge s feet. 
 "I 11 be over from the office as soon as ever I 
 can," she said. She hurried so in sorting the 
 mail that she was not so much as usual on the 
 lookout for a Washington letter, when, sud 
 denly, she found it in her hand. Amanda s 
 heart seemed to come up in her throat; she 
 stopped her work to hold the letter tight in her 
 trembling fingers. It had come ! Her mother 
 would surely feel better and get up for dinner. 
 In the confusion of her thankfulness the impulse 
 of prayer spoke in her heart, but she had no 
 words except, " Oh, mother 11 get up ! she 11 
 feel better!" 
 
 "Here s a bundle for you, Mandy," said 
 Oily. "I clean forgot to leave it when I hove 
 in the bag." 
 
 She opened the delivery window and took the 
 package, but she was too joyfully excited to 
 notice it. She had begun to put the mail into 
 the pigeon holes with one hand, holding the 
 precious letter tightly in the other; she pushed 
 the bundle a little to one side. "It s some 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 243 
 
 blanks, I guess," she thought. It seemed to 
 Amanda that Sally Goodrich was never so long 
 in getting her purse out from the deep pocket 
 of her petticoat to pay for the sheet of writing- 
 paper she had purchased ; nor was Mr. Thyme, 
 who kept the tavern, ever so insistent that it 
 was time for inquiries about summer board, and 
 he didn t see why there weren t no letters for 
 him. 
 
 In spite of being thus delayed, Amanda was 
 smiling with happiness when it struck her that 
 the package was a present from Mr. Hunter. 
 Oh, this was almost too much relief and joy! 
 When at last the Public had gone, she seized 
 the bundle and the letter, and ran through the 
 shed, the red, white, and blue door banging 
 after her with great clatter of the latch; but 
 Amanda could not pause to close it. Oh, the 
 agitation and joy of these two women! The 
 rush of forgiveness for having had so many days 
 of waiting, the joyous excitement of imagining 
 Mr. Hunter s gratitude, and the wonder and 
 awe of the accompanying package ! 
 
 "I hope he didn t feel under any obligation 
 to give us a present, kind as it is in him. Open 
 the letter first, and see what he says. Hurry, 
 child!" 
 
 Amanda s fingers blundered with the envel 
 ope, and she read in a breathless way. Mrs. 
 
244 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Gedge sat up in bed, and pushed the wide ruffle 
 of her nightcap back, so that nothing might es 
 cape her delighted eyes : 
 
 Mr. Hunter desires to acknowledge the 
 receipt of a package from Mrs. Gedge, as per 
 letter, for which he begs to express his thanks. 
 He regrets that he must herewith return the 
 package, his position precluding the acceptance 
 of gifts. " 
 
 Mrs. Gedge leaned back on her pillows, with 
 pitiful fright and bewilderment in her face. 
 " Mandy, it s our album," she said. "Oh, 
 Mandy ! Her cheeks seemed to hollow in, 
 and her chin shook. " Mandy, it s our al 
 bum! " she whispered. 
 
 Amanda Gedge stood breathless. "Why!" 
 she stammered, "why, mother; why, wait! It 
 must be all right. Oh, mother, don t cry!" 
 But Amanda was crying herself. "I think 
 he s friendly; let me read it again. Now lis 
 ten, mother; he begs to express his thanks, 
 begs, mother. Oh, I m sure he s friendly. 
 He regrets, that means he is very sorry; re 
 gret means being sorry, mother. And it is 
 his position, the letter says, that makes him 
 return it. And and he tells the person who 
 wrote it for him to send his thanks, mother. 
 
A FOURTH- CLASS APPOINTMENT. 245 
 
 You see, he s so busy he can t even write him 
 self." 
 
 But the shock was too much for Mrs. Gedge 
 to be able at once to see the "friendliness" in 
 the letter written by "another person." She 
 dropped her worn old face on the pillow and 
 whimpered like a child. "Take it away," she 
 said feebly, and Amanda carried the album into 
 the kitchen. She was so excited and frightened 
 about her mother, so angry that Mrs. Gedge s 
 gift should be rejected, that the quiet woman 
 touched the only note of passion that had ever 
 come into her life. She put the album down on 
 the table with something like violence, and then 
 gave it a shove with her bony hands, and said 
 something under her breath. It was nothing 
 more than " You ! " but Amanda understood the 
 spirit of the Third Commandment as she had 
 never in her placid life understood it before. 
 
 It was several days before Mrs. Gedge could 
 look calmly at the album, or consider the letter 
 reasonably, but little by little she began to say 
 that it was "all right," and she believed that 
 Mr. Hunter was friendly. "It s his position, 
 Mandy," she explained again and again. "He 
 couldn t help sending it back; he told the per 
 son who wrote his letter for him to say he 
 couldn t help it. It s his position." 
 
 Meantime March was blown into April; it 
 
246 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 had been a hard month for Mrs. Gedge, with 
 the excitement about the album and the constant 
 changes in the temperature. But Mrs. Gedge 
 was not the only person who found the season 
 trying. William Sprague said to Mr. Hamil 
 ton, who dropped in in the friendliest way to 
 see him one day at his news-stand in Mercer, 
 he told Mr. Hamilton that he felt that old 
 wound in his leg in such weather; why, he be 
 lieved that he could foretell a storm as much as 
 three days before it came, and he said he did n t 
 know but what he d offer his services to the 
 Weather Bureau in Washington ; and then he 
 laughed, and said he believed it would be an 
 easy lay, if Mr. Hamilton would excuse his 
 speaking that way. But Mr. Hamilton would 
 not let him talk about excusing himself ; he said 
 that he thought William would be the better for 
 a change; and then he said a dozen words that 
 left his hearer aghast with pleasure. 
 
 "And I m to be ready the last of April, sir? 
 Well, there s not much to do. I 11 sell out 
 here, and pack up my duds. I haven t many, 
 now my poor wife s dead and gone. I auc 
 tioned off most of the furniture; didn t need it, 
 you know." 
 
 William Sprague s face was red with excite 
 ment. He was a short, stout man, with kindly, 
 twinkling blue eyes and a grizzled, rough red 
 
A FOURTH CLASS APPOINTMENT. 247 
 
 beard. He wore a G. A. R. badge, and walked 
 with a limp and roll ; he was stiff with rheuma 
 tism, but was never too crippled or too hurried 
 to stop to do a kindness, pick up a fallen 
 child, and comfort it with a penny, or walk an 
 extra mile to do a favor for a friend. And yet 
 his friends were apt to say he was contrary, and 
 cite as an instance his long feud with McCor- 
 mick, his rival on the next block, a warfare 
 waged with the greatest bitterness on Sprague s 
 side, and furnishing much pleasant interest to 
 those not concerned in it. 
 
 "William was like to kill him till McCor- 
 mick got the fever, and then, darn him ! he up 
 and nursed him for six weeks. But they re 
 good enemies again now." 
 
 William Sprague liked to do a kindness, but 
 it is a question whether he could do a kindness 
 if it were expected of him. "I won t be drov ," 
 said William ; and he never was. 
 
 "I 11 feel bad to leave some of my friends," 
 he told Mr. Hamilton; "but I m obliged to 
 you, I m obliged to you, sir. There s nothing 
 I d like better than to run a post-office. You 
 can count on my vote when you re runnin for 
 President. Take a paper, Mr. Hamilton ; take 
 a Herald. He folded a paper and thrust it 
 into the hand of his patron. "No, sir, no, sir; 
 not a cent. I guess I can give you a paper; 
 and a good Democratic organ, sir." 
 
248 A FOURTH -CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 He laughed, and so did Mr. Hamilton, accept 
 ing the present with gracious politeness, and 
 lifting his hat slightly as he said : 
 
 "Much obliged, Sprague. Well, good-morn 
 ing. I shall expect to see you settled when I 
 get down to my country house in June." Then 
 he stooped and patted Jimmy, William s rusty 
 little Scotch terrier, and went away. 
 
 William Sprague was, as Mr. Hamilton said, 
 a capable, efficient man. He went to work to 
 wind up the affairs of his news-stand in a me 
 thodical and business-like manner. He drove 
 a sharp bargain with the man who bought him 
 out, and cleared ten dollars by the sale of odds 
 and ends about his small premises. 
 
 "I d meant to pitch em into the ash bar l," 
 he confided to one of his cronies, "but of course 
 I didn t tell him so. I said I was going to 
 pack em up and take em along, and of course 
 that made him hot for em." He winked and 
 chuckled, and then whistled to a newsboy across 
 the street, and tossed a quarter to him. 
 " Sonny, if you 11 bring in a dozen of the fel 
 lows to-night, I 11 give you a treat." 
 
 And he did. u He come down handsome," 
 the boys said, afterwards, with ice-cream two 
 kinds and three doughnuts apiece. 
 
 The days went slowly to William Sprague, 
 waiting for his appointment, but they passed 
 
A FOURTH CLASS APPOINTMENT. 249 
 
 with placid haste to Mrs. Gedge. She had 
 grown reconciled to her own explanation about 
 the album. 
 
 "It would n t have been proper, Mancly, 
 for him to accept it. I can see that now. 
 And, Mandy, I don t know but what I 
 thought of it last night, lying awake I don t 
 know but what we did wrong about that blot 
 ter. You know the blotter with ribbons that 
 Sally Goodrich gave us for the office last sum 
 mer? Mandy, it was n t proper to receive 
 presents in our position ! " 
 
 V. 
 
 April was very lovely among the hills. The 
 sunshine, threaded sometimes by sudden show 
 ers, and chased by cloud shadows and soft, warm 
 winds, lay like a smile upon the meadows. The 
 lilac buds opened like green stars, and had that 
 faint, indefinable fragrance which the later pur 
 ple blossoms exaggerate almost into coarseness. 
 The creeks were high, and the whirling brown 
 waters shook the wooden bridges in a threaten 
 ing way; the red buds of the maples dipped 
 into the flood, and strained and tugged at their 
 stems as though trying to be off on its turbulent 
 freedom; all the world was full of joyous life 
 and promise. 
 
250 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Amanda Gedge went up to the burying- 
 ground on the hill to brush away the sheltering 
 dead leaves on the mound, and plant a root of 
 lilies of the valley. The sky was softly blue 
 and the sun was warm upon the slope, and, al 
 though it was indiscreet for a person who was 
 over forty and rheumatic, Amanda, after she 
 had performed her little office of love, spread 
 out her shawl, and sat down on the grass to 
 meditate. Something must be done about the 
 tintype; of course she could not think of the 
 crayon for a year or two yet ; but the bit of glass 
 covering the picture on the headstone was so 
 spotted with mildew within, that no amount of 
 polishing on the outside made it possible for 
 her to see Willie s face. Now if she could get 
 that glass off and clean it well? The thought 
 of holding the tintype in her hand after all these 
 years gave her a strange thrill. It was like 
 touching the mysteries of the other world ! She 
 would get Silas Goodrich to set it again, for 
 Silas added the profession of glazier to that of 
 painter, plumber, and horse-doctor to the vil 
 lage of Pennyville. The doing this for Willie 
 gave Amanda Gedge a curious joy, the phan 
 tom, perhaps, of that happiness she might have 
 known had she been his wife and had the joy 
 of serving him. She smoothed the grass where, 
 under the sheltering dead leaves, it had whit- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 2ol 
 
 ened to a silky smoothness, and she hoped the 
 lily root would grow. Willie had loved flow 
 ers, except toward the end; then, one Septem 
 ber day, when she carried him a bunch of glow 
 ing salvia, he had turned fretfully away, and 
 told her not to bother. 
 
 "Willie was so sick," she said to herself, 
 remembering, but remembering only his pain, 
 not his slight. She always said good - by to 
 him when she had to leave him here alone on 
 the hillside. Amanda knew that Willie was 
 in heaven, but somehow he seemed here, too, 
 under the leaning piece of slate and the bleached 
 winter grass. 
 
 When she got back to the post-office, a little 
 tired, but full of the peace of the calm, sweet 
 day, her mother had a dozen small and pleasant 
 happenings to tell her. And Amanda listened 
 to everything with keen interest and sympathy, 
 and then confided her plan about the glass, to 
 which Mrs. Gedge cordially assented, although 
 she thought to herself that it certainly was 
 strange for Mandy to be so faithful to Willie, 
 after all these years. She did not believe, feel 
 ing the way she did, that Mandy would ever 
 marry ; it was a pity for a girl to be an old 
 maid! Well, she liked to have Mandy faithful 
 to her beau. "But," said Mrs. Gedge to her 
 self, "my! what would she have done if she d 
 
252 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 been left like me, if she takes on so, and Willie 
 only her beau?" 
 
 It was too dark to knit, but she saw Amanda, 
 who was sorting the mail, put aside an official 
 letter, and she was eager to know what was in it. 
 "Do make haste, Mandy," she said. "My, I 
 wonder if they are going to make any change 
 in the stamps! I don t want to find fault, but 
 they re not pretty the stamps." 
 
 Amanda looked over her shoulder to caution 
 her mother not to speak so loud, the Public 
 must not overhear an official criticism! But 
 she took time to give her mother the letter; 
 for, though Mrs. Gedge could not read it in the 
 fading light by the window, and Amanda had 
 both lamps to assist her in sorting the mail, she 
 knew that it was a satisfaction to her mother 
 even to hold it in her crippled old hands. But 
 when her public duties had been discharged, 
 Amanda made haste to open the envelope. 
 
 "I can t stop to talk," she said, with her offi 
 cial smile, to two or three women who were 
 waiting to gossip in the twilight, "because I 
 must attend to some Washington business ; " 
 and, properly impressed, the ladies were satis 
 fied to talk to each other. 
 
 "Read it, child, read it," said her mother, 
 sticking her knitting - needles into their little 
 ivory sheaths. 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 253 
 
 " MADAM, It is deemed for the best inter 
 ests of the service that a change be made in the 
 post-office at Penny ville. Your resignation will, 
 therefore, be accepted, to take effect on the 1st 
 day of May. 
 
 " Yours truly, . " 
 
 The name that followed Amanda did not 
 know. 
 
 "Why, I don t understand," interrupted 
 Mrs. Gedge. "Why, what does it mean?" 
 
 Amanda stared at her mother; then she grew 
 suddenly faint, and sat down. 
 
 "But I don t understand," Mrs. Gedge re< 
 peated. 
 
 "Mother, don t! they ll hear," Amanda in 
 terrupted in a whispering voice. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge looked up at her in a sort of ter 
 ror. " Mandy?" 
 
 But, without a word, Amanda wrapped her 
 shawl tightly about the little, old, shrinking 
 figure, and with a swift motion opened the side 
 door into the shed. 
 
 "I m going to wheel mother into the house," 
 she called out to the women who were standing 
 by the counter. 
 
 Her voice was husky, and there was the swift 
 precision of agitation in her manner, which they 
 noticed and commented on. They said they 
 
254 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 supposed that Amanda Gedge was getting real 
 worried about her mother, and 110 wonder, 
 either. They waited a good while, hoping that 
 Amanda would come back; but as she did not, 
 they said it was lucky they were there, for Mrs. 
 Dace came hurrying in to buy a stamp, and 
 there was a good deal of giggling and chattering 
 about being the postmistress, for, rather than 
 bother Mandy, they went behind the pigeon 
 holes themselves, and, in the most obliging way 
 in the world, opened the stamp-box and received 
 Mrs. Dace s two pennies just as well as Mandy 
 herself could have done. And then, laughing 
 and making fun, as they expressed it, they went 
 off into the twilight, leaving the old post-office 
 in dusky quiet, with the door standing hospi 
 tably open. 
 
 It was nine o clock before Amanda Gedge 
 came back. She closed the door, turned the 
 lamps down low, and dropped into a chair, her 
 head resting in her hands. She went all over 
 the last three hours ; her mother s bewilderment 
 and terror; the shock to her pride, a pride 
 which seemed, Amanda had thought, watching 
 the old face wither and whiten, to be her 
 life; then the struggle to understand, and at 
 last the rally of courage with which Mrs. Gedge 
 cried out suddenly that she knew what the 
 letter meant! The relief of her own insight 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 255 
 
 was for a moment almost too great for words. 
 "The best interests of the service," she said, 
 with a gasp. "For our interests, Mandy ; don t 
 you see? It is just consideration. They think 
 I m too old for such hard work. That s it, 
 I know it is. It s kindness. But, Mandy, 
 child, you go right over to the post-office and 
 write to the President; you tell him I am not 
 too old to work for him. He thinks I am, 
 Mandy, you can see that from the letter, 
 and he gives me the chance to resign ; but you 
 say I am obliged, but it isn t necessary. You 
 see, he don t understand; he s new himself, 
 you know, and he don t understand; he thinks 
 the work is too much for me. Oh, don t let him 
 think I don t appreciate him, but tell him I 
 could not think of it. Why, Mandy, you tell 
 him I could not desert the Government after 
 these twenty years ! And explain to him how 
 much you are able to do now you are older. 
 You know you were so young when I got the 
 place, and they have forgotten that you are 
 older now ; I suppose nobody thought to explain 
 that to the new President." She looked up at 
 her daughter, and actually laughed with relief. 
 "My! it did give me a start! But you see 
 what it means?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," Amanda assured her; "why, of 
 course." But she said to herself, "I don t 
 
256 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 know, I don t know. May be she s right. 
 But we won t resign, anyhow. We won t do 
 it ! " And then she reassured her mother again 
 in that brief, repressed way that never knew the 
 relief of a caress, "Never you mind, mother; 
 it s all right." 
 
 But Mrs. Gedge s confidence had not come at 
 once ; there had been a dreadful hour of bewil 
 derment and mortification and terror. And now 
 Amanda, sitting alone in the dark post-office, 
 put the explanation aside and faced the facts. 
 
 "They will accept mother s resignation. 
 It s Mr. Hamilton did it. Oh, that man! 
 Well, we won t resign; that s all there is to it. 
 We won t resign. I 11 write and tell the Presi- 
 
 O 
 
 dent so, and very likely we 11 never hear any 
 thing more about it. But, tenner rate, we 
 won t resign." She would never forgive Mr. 
 Hamilton, sho was sure of that. The blow to 
 her mother, Amanda s shoulders shook with 
 sobs, as she sat there, her head on her knees, 
 swaying to and fro with misery the shock to 
 Mrs. Gedge was too great to be forgiven. "Oh, 
 if I only hadn t lost his letter!" she said, again 
 and again. "It s my fault; it s all my fault, 
 not mother s. I 11 tell the President that." 
 
 But she must not waste her time ; she must 
 explain that her mother was much obliged, but 
 did not care to avail herself of the consideration 
 and kindness of the Government. 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 257 
 
 This for Mrs. Gedge to read; then on a sheet 
 of thin pink paper, with a print of a rose in 
 the upper left hand corner, came her own self- 
 accusation ; she wrote with a tumultuous haste, 
 unlike her usual labored correspondence with 
 the department. The words were burning in 
 the elderly woman s heart. "Oh," she said to 
 herself, "even if they did mean it kindly, as 
 she says, it may kill mother." 
 
 She sobbed as she wrote; but when the letter 
 had been sent, and a few days had passed wilhout 
 any further communication from Washington, 
 Amanda was calmer than she had thought she 
 could be while this cruel uncertainty was hang 
 ing over her. Mrs. Gedge began to gather an 
 immense amount of comfort and pride from this 
 expression of the consideration of the Govern 
 ment. She told Amanda that she really wished 
 the Public knew of it. She didn t want to be 
 proud, she said, but it was gratifying, and she 
 almost wished Sally Goodrich knew it. Aman 
 da s feeling was so decidedly against this confi 
 dence that Mrs. Gedge reluctantly gave it up. 
 "Yes, you re right," she said; "we re not 
 like ordinary people; we can t tell our affairs." 
 And Amanda was quick to say that was just 
 how she felt. But her mother s innocent im 
 portance cut her to the heart, and gave her, 
 too, a sort of terror of the weakness of which 
 
258 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 she felt it to be a sign. Although no answer 
 had come from Washington, and the refusal to 
 resign had apparently been accepted without a 
 protest, Amanda Gedge found herself counting 
 the days until the 1st of May. She did not 
 know why. She only felt that something was 
 going to happen then. But those soft spring 
 days brightened Mrs. Gedge wonderfully, the 
 days and the quiet of her mind, for, not hearing 
 from the President, the shock of the letter she 
 had at first so grievously misunderstood faded 
 from her memory. Such forge tf ulness only made 
 Amanda s heart sink. 
 
 The second week in April Mrs. Gedge said 
 that, although she felt better, she believed she 
 would not go over to the post-office for a few 
 days; the being wheeled over made her bones 
 ache, and she d just as lief stay in the kitchen, 
 she said. But of course she kept an eye on the 
 post-office, and saw the stage come rumbling 
 up at noon, and watched the off horse paw 
 ing restlessly, while Oily handed the mail-bag 
 to Amanda. There was a man on the box- 
 seat at Olly s side who roused her curiosity a 
 good deal; and when her daughter came in to 
 get dinner, she asked her if she had noticed 
 him. 
 
 "lie was real pleasant-looking," she said, as 
 Amanda pushed her chair up to the table; "real 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 259 
 
 pleasant, but big; though he ain t to blame for 
 that. Who do you think he can be? lie had 
 a little dog sitting up beside him, like a little 
 deacon! I like to see a man friendly with a 
 dog. He is n t the sewing-machine man; may 
 be he s a dentist?" 
 
 "Or a book agent," suggested Amanda. "I 
 like book agents, they have so much conversa 
 tion. Sometimes I think, really, if I d the 
 money, I d buy one of their books, they do 
 talk so nice about them." 
 
 "He looked real hard at the shed door," Mrs. 
 Gedge commented. "I guess he never saw a 
 shed door painted just so. I don t know but 
 what we d better change it, Mandy?" 
 
 "I guess he thought it was nice, mother," 
 objected the other, gently. 
 
 "Well, anyway, when Mr. Thyme comes 
 down for the mail, child, you be sure and ask 
 who he is. It s far too early for a summer 
 boarder." 
 
 It was delightful to have a new and interest 
 ing topic of conversation. William Sprague, 
 "cleaning himself " before a small mirror in the 
 office at the tavern, had no idea how much plea 
 sure his advent had given. William s coming 
 to Pennyville thus early, was simply because 
 his important happiness demanded some kind 
 of action. The day that Mrs. Gedge had been 
 
2GO A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 notified that her resignation would be accepted, 
 a communication had come to William Sprague, 
 showing the reverse side of that letter which, 
 as Mrs. Gedge expressed it, "she had misun 
 derstood." lie read it for sheer pleasure a 
 dozen times a day, and each day the 1st of May 
 seemed farther off! Ho packed his trunk at 
 once, and when he had had a week of incon 
 venience in unpacking and repacking whenever 
 he wanted anything, it occurred to him that the 
 best thing he could do would be to take Jimmy 
 and go to Pennyville at once, and, while wait 
 ing for the desired date, become acquainted 
 with his constituents, so to speak. 
 
 "It s two weeks before I go into office," he 
 told his friends, "but I 11 be learning the ways 
 of the place and the people, so as to get a good 
 grip on the work." 
 
 He was as full of enthusiasm, and of plans for 
 reform in what he knew nothing about, as was 
 Mr. Hamilton himself. He took it for granted, 
 after the manner of all new brooms, that every 
 thing in Pennyville was in the most shocking 
 condition of neglect and dilapidation. Yes, the 
 sooner he got there and looked about him, and 
 investigated the poor, feeble, inefficient work 
 ings of the post-office, the better. And so, 
 with only the delay of carting his trunk to the 
 station, William Sprague hurried off to his new 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 261 
 
 life. He was glad when the journey in the cars 
 was over, and, whistling to Jimmy to follow 
 him, he could clamber up on the stage, and take 
 the box - seat with Oily Clough, and then go 
 swinging and creaking along the hilly roads 
 toward Penny ville. 
 
 William Sprague did not tell Oily who he 
 was; he preferred the sensation of coming into 
 his kingdom in disguise. He was very gra 
 cious, though ; he complimented the country that 
 stretched before him, in terms which intimated 
 a friendly desire to overlook any mistakes on 
 the part of the Creator; he thought the houses 
 looked comfortable, he said, and the barns quite 
 a size ; he admitted that it had apparently rained 
 . considerable, but he felt that it did good, after 
 all, a big spring rain ; it did good, and he would 
 not find fault. By and by he approached the 
 subject of Penny ville. 
 
 "Pretty place?" 
 
 Oily looked vacant, and said he did not 
 know. "I ain t thought about its being purty," 
 said Oily. 
 
 "Large population?" Mr. Sprague inquired. 
 
 "Well, sizable," Oily answered. 
 
 William Sprague cleared his throat and 
 seemed much interested in the off leader. 
 "Good mare that? Yes? Ha hum the 
 post-office, now" this with striking indiffer 
 ence "quite a job to run it? " 
 
262 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Oily stuck out his lips to hide a satisfied 
 smile. "Yes, she s fair she s fair. You 
 don t see none better an her in the city." 
 
 William answered briefly, but it was some 
 time before he could woo Oily from the subject 
 of the mare, and when he again asked his ques 
 tion about the post-office, the stage-driver was 
 plainly not interested. 
 
 "Well, I never heard Mandy complain," he 
 said. 
 
 "Mandy?" 
 
 Mandy and her mother keep it; been there 
 since the war." 
 
 "Well! said William, much interested. 
 "What are they goin to do?" 
 " Huh ? " Oily inquired. " Do ? " 
 "Why," said William, with some modesty, 
 "when the change is made. You know the 
 other party is in now; they re puttin in their 
 men." 
 
 Olly s low chuckle came as though jolted out 
 of him. "Well, I guess they won t put any 
 body in our post-office over Mandy and her 
 mother." He paused to point out silently the 
 green expanse of the valley below them. Oily 
 thought it was good farming land himself, but 
 the summer visitors always made a fuss about 
 it, and so he had learned to point it out to any 
 passenger on the box-seat. 
 
A FOUETH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 263 
 
 "Pretty good, pretty good," said William, 
 with absent graciousness, watching a cloud 
 shadow chase across a meadow and up the slop 
 ing fields to the woods; "yes, I must say that s 
 pretty fair for these parts." 
 
 They rumbled along for nearly a mile without 
 a word, William Sprague feeling vaguely de 
 pressed and uncomfortable, when Oily broke 
 out: 
 
 "Why, look a here. They ain t got a cent, 
 Mandy and her mother; ef they weren t in 
 the office, they d be on the town. Talk about 
 puttin people in over Mandy and the old 
 lady! I guess they d wish they wasn t put in. 
 I guess they d be considerable put out! " Oily 
 laughed at this joke several times during the 
 next hour. "Put in, put out," he repeated, 
 and chuckled. 
 
 But William Sprague frowned in a troubled 
 way. "There!" said he to himself, "I am 
 sorry for the women, but it ain t for me to say 
 anything. I 11 do my duty, that s all I m here 
 for. The women ain t my business. But it s 
 queer they haven t told this young man about 
 the change. I should think they d tell him, 
 sure; seeing he carries the mail." 
 
 He had no inclination now to disclose his 
 identity to Oily, whose ignorance puzzled him, 
 and even irritated him a little, too. But he was 
 
264 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 quite good-natured again and full of interest 
 and excitement by the time they turned into 
 Main Street and drew up at the post-office. He 
 looked about curiously while Oily handed in the 
 mail, and said in a loud whisper that that red, 
 white, and blue door showed a good spirit. He 
 would not call until he had gone to the tavern 
 and cleaned up, he said to himself. That done, 
 and a comfortable dinner disposed of, he put on 
 his broad brimmed felt hat and went with some 
 thing of a roll and a limp, and with Jimmy close 
 at his heels, down to the office. 
 
 It was three o clock, and Main Street was 
 quite deserted; the door of the post-office was 
 partly open, and a puff of wind showed its offi 
 cial interior. It showed him also a tall, angular 
 woman standing behind the counter; her back 
 was toward him, for she was trying to lit; one 
 of the pasteboard boxes into its niche without 
 wrenching its feeble joints. At his step she 
 turned with rather a pleased look. ("He 
 hasn t a bag, only a dog," Amanda said to 
 herself; "what can he be? ") 
 
 "Good -afternoon," said William Sprague, 
 taking off his hat, and then putting it carefully 
 on his head again. "How do you do, ma am? " 
 
 "Good- afternoon," returned Amanda, po 
 litely. "Fine day, sir." 
 
 "Well, yes, it is, it is," William conceded, 
 pleasantly. 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 265 
 
 "Are you stopping in town, sir?" inquired 
 the postmistress. She was not surprised that 
 he had called at the office; what more impor 
 tant or pleasant place was there ? Amanda was 
 always gracious, if a little formal, to people 
 who came to pay their respects. She patted 
 Jimmy s head as he stood on his hind legs 
 and sniffed at the counter. The little dog s 
 patient brown eyes were not unlike Amanda s 
 own. 
 
 "Well," said William, blankly, "I am; yes, 
 I I" 
 
 "On business, I presume; what is your line?" 
 said Amanda, wishing to be agreeable. "Are 
 you in the dentistry business?" 
 
 "Well, no," said the new postmaster, frown 
 ing very much with bewilderment; "no, I can t 
 say I am. Not dentistry, exactly; no. I came 
 down to call, ma am, on you. You are Mrs. 
 Gedge, I presume. I understand you run this 
 office." 
 
 Amanda Gedge felt a sudden contraction 
 about her heart. "The post-office belongs to 
 mother," she said, faintly. The numb and hid 
 den terror of the past weeks confronted her 
 and clamored for a hearing. 
 
 o 
 
 "Yes, just so; so I understood," said Wil 
 liam Sprague. "Well, perhaps you weren t 
 looking for me before the 1st, but I thought I d 
 
266 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 come; I thought I d get to know the place, 
 ma am." 
 
 William took off his hat and wiped his fore 
 head. He wished he had a bit of stick and his 
 knife, then he would not have to look at her, he 
 thought; the slow whitening of her face; the 
 movement of her dry lips as she tried to speak 
 and could not; her hands clutching the edge of 
 the counter until the knuckles were white, and 
 her changed voice, were terrible. It was like 
 seeing some poor, dumb creature tortured. 
 
 "What what? I don t know I don t 
 know what you mean ? " 
 
 "Well, I ve been put in here, you know," 
 "William said, bending down to pull Jimmy s 
 ears, so that he need not see her face; "and 
 I came along now to Pennyville because I 
 thought, perhaps, you d I ve no experience, 
 and I thought " lie began to stammer with 
 
 pity; her rigid face and wide, terror-stricken 
 brown eyes confused him. "I hope you are 
 well, and your ma, too," he ended, weakly. 
 
 "You will kill mother," said Amanda. 
 
 "Ma am?" 
 
 "You will kill her if you turn her out of her 
 post-office." 
 
 William Sprague shuffled his feet noisily on 
 the floor ; then he took off his hat and seemed 
 to scan it critically. "I ain t responsible, Miss 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 267 
 
 Gedge; I was sent here. The department de 
 cided to make a change, I suppose, and I was 
 sent here." 
 
 "You must go away," Amanda said; her 
 voice broke, and she could not say anything 
 more. 
 
 William s eyes glistened. " "This is the cus- 
 sedest business I was ever in," he said, under 
 his breath. "Poor girl ! Poor thing!" He 
 felt something roll down his cheek, and that 
 helped him to be angry. "Well," he said, 
 sternly; "this ain t your affair, nor mine. 
 I m sent. I can t help it. I m to be in on 
 the first day of May. I 11 go away till then. 
 I d just as lief as not clear out till the first of 
 the month, if it will oblige you any; honest, I 
 would." 
 
 "Don t you understand ? " Amanda explained, 
 her voice monotonous with pain. "I don t 
 want you to come back ever. Mother s 
 been here twenty years. If she was put out, 
 she would die. She would be on the town ; but 
 the worst thing to her, the thing that would kill 
 mother, would be to be put out. Oh, go away! 
 You can come back when she dies yes, you 
 can come back then. Oh, go go I " Amanda 
 stopped ; she dropped her head upon the coun 
 ter and sobbed aloud. 
 
 William wiped his brow and sighed. 
 
268 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Amanda lifted her large face, working with 
 tears. "Mother 5 s been here twenty years," she 
 repeated, "twenty years." 
 
 William Sprague stamped across the post- 
 office and back. "Well, ma am, I m sorry. 
 I don t mind saying I m sorry. I I I m 
 damned sorry! But I don t see what I can do 
 about it. If I was n t here, somebody else 
 would be. And well, I m put here, and it s 
 my duty to stay where I m put." 
 
 "Mother s done her duty," said Amanda, 
 feebly. 
 
 "I ain t a-questionin that, of course," Wil 
 liam assured her quickly. "She s all right, 
 of course. But the party has changed, you 
 know. The Democrats are in. Now you and 
 your mother ain t Democrats, so out you 
 go!" 
 
 "What!" cried Amanda, looking at him 
 with sudden hope, "not Democrats? Why, if 
 that s the reason, we ll be Democrats! I ll 
 write and tell the President so. Why, we d 
 just as lief be Democrats, sir. Won t you tell 
 the President so?" 
 
 "My Lord! " said William Sprague. 
 
 "I 11 write to the President. Oh, if that s 
 all, it will be all right. If they had only told 
 us that, we d have changed in November." 
 
 "Well, ma am," interposed William, wea- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 269 
 
 rily, "I guess I 11 go up to the hotel and rest a 
 bit, and may be we can talk it over later in the 
 evening. I 11 come in and set awhile, and 
 we ll talk it over, and you ll see." William 
 was actually fatigued with the hopelessness of 
 the situation. 
 
 "No; mother would wonder," Amanda an 
 swered. "I I will be out, walking down by 
 the bridge, and if you 11 be there, I 11 explain ; 
 I 11 tell you why we can t leave, and you 11 
 understand." 
 
 VI. 
 
 That meeting at the bridge was productive 
 of nothing but the need of another talk, and 
 after it William reflected that he must not 
 leave Pennyville until Amanda was reconciled 
 to his return on the 1st of May, so he settled 
 down comfortably at the tavern. Of course by 
 this time Mrs. Gedge was the only person in 
 the village who did not understand the situa 
 tion; but everybody united to conceal it from 
 her. 
 
 Mr. Sprague was so sympathetic in spite of 
 his quiet determination to "have the place" 
 that he was not greatly disliked, as might have 
 been supposed. He was the unwilling tool of 
 circumstances; he could not that was very 
 
270 A FOUETH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 clear he could not help himself; "for," as 
 he explained a dozen times a day, "for, if 
 I didn t come, somebody else would, and it 
 would be just as bad on Mandy." William 
 had adopted the customs of the village at once, 
 and called everybody by their first names. 
 
 A week of protest and insistence slipped by; 
 to Amanda it was only a long daze of terror; 
 to the new postmaster it was pitiful but inter 
 esting. He was as kind as possible to Aman 
 da; he bought a very hideous little blue glass 
 dish, in the shape of a shell, and presented it 
 to her; he even fetched her a bunch of wild 
 flowers,. London-pride and dog-tooth violets 
 and Quaker-ladies. Amanda took them list 
 lessly. She explained to her mother that the 
 gentleman who was stopping up at the tavern 
 - " that big red man you saw on the stage, who 
 comes to the office most every day with his 
 dog " he had given her the presents, she said. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge revived with this new interest, 
 like some poor,, faded flower that looks up for a 
 moment in the rain. "Why, child," she said, 
 her black eyes fairly snapping with pleasure, 
 "you ve got a beau ! I think you might ask 
 him into the parlor some time, Mandy, ta see 
 me." 
 
 William Sprague made this same suggestion. 
 "I d like to see your ma, Mandy; course I 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 271 
 
 won t say a word to her, but I d just like to 
 see how the land lays." 
 
 And so Amanda had no choice but to arrange 
 a meeting. "Will you come in this after 
 noon?" she said; and Mr. Sprague assented at 
 once. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge, when she heard that he was 
 coming, was filled with excited hospitality, and 
 made her daughter wheel her immediately into 
 the parlor. "He ll be here in two or three 
 hours, child," she said, "so you just get to work 
 and dust up. Open the shutters first. Now, 
 come, be spry! Dear! if I had my legs!" 
 Almost with irritation she watched Amanda, 
 moving slowly about with the duster in heavy 
 silence. Amanda was not excited. "It s like 
 a girl," Mrs. Gedge thought. "They take 
 their beaux for granted, and won t make a 
 speck of effort for em ! But Mandy ain t as 
 young as she was; she ought to take pains." 
 When the shutters were opened, she felt a pang 
 as she saw a strip of sunshine stretching across 
 the red and blue roses of the carpet. "It will 
 fade it," she thought; "but there! if Mandy 
 takes him, I guess he can buy her a new carpet 
 one of these days." 
 
 The dreary order of the room was really per 
 fect; there was nothing to be done except to 
 wait impatiently for the arrival of the caller. 
 
272 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 An hour before he was expected, Mrs. Gedge 
 put on her best cap; it was almost new, for 
 she had not worn it a half-dozen times since 
 Amanda made it four years ago ; then she shook 
 out the folds of a clean handkerchief, and drew 
 Amanda s blue plaid shawl about her shoulders. 
 Then a happy thought struck her. " Mandy, 
 I believe that those black mitts of mine are in 
 that old cigar-box, in the right-hand corner, 
 back, of my top bureau drawer. Do look, 
 Mandy. There, child, hurry! My, you ain t 
 fast, are you? " 
 
 Amanda found the little black silk mitts, 
 and then wheeled her mother s chair upon the 
 braided mat before the empty fireplace, just as 
 William Sprague lifted the knocker on the 
 front door. It was so long since that door had 
 been opened that the key would not turn in the 
 lock, and Amanda, in an embarrassed voice, 
 was obliged to call out to Mr. Sprague, "Will 
 you please go round to the kitchen door, and 
 come in that way? " This was mortifying; but 
 the occasion was too great and too agreeable for 
 mortifications to be long remembered; and Mr. 
 Sprague certainly did not seem put out by it, 
 Mrs. Gedge said afterwards. 
 
 He found the little crippled old woman sit 
 ting up very straight in her chair, with her mitts 
 crossed carefully in front of her, and the ruffle 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 273 
 
 of her cap fairly quivering with pleasure. The 
 sunshine had crept round to the west window, 
 so that the lilac bushes kept most of it from the 
 carpet, and, free from that anxiety, Mrs. Gedge 
 could give herself up to the opportunity of the 
 moment. 
 
 "Praise to the face is open disgrace," she 
 said, smiling and nodding, in answer to Mr. 
 Sprague s remark that Miss Mandy seemed 
 real smart, housekeeping and running a post- 
 office, too, " Praise to the face is open dis 
 grace, but I must say the child is capable. 
 She s a real smart girl, sir." 
 
 Amanda stood with a stony face behind her 
 mother s chair. As William said "post-office" 
 she looked up, and her tired eyes besought him 
 with a quick terror ; he nodded, reassuringly. 
 
 "I should think, now, Mrs. Gedge," he be 
 gan, "you and Miss Mandy would be about 
 tired of the office, you ve been there so long; 
 honest, I would." 
 
 Mrs. Gedge was hospitable and condescend 
 ing, but she could not allow any such talk as 
 that; she smiled primly, and her voice was less 
 friendly. "No, sir," she said; "in our posi 
 tion we cannot think of ourselves. We are 
 glad, Mandy and me, to be in the service, and 
 I m sure we could n t be so unworthy as to 
 think of being tired. Besides that," she ended, 
 
274 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 trying to be less severe, " Mandy really takes 
 a good deal off me. Mandy s real capable." 
 
 "But you ve been here a good while," Wil 
 liam insisted, anxiously; he was not making 
 his point as he had hoped to ; he looked about 
 the room in a shifting, embarrassed way; he 
 wished he had not come. 
 
 "Yes; Mandy was only twenty-five," re 
 turned Mrs. Gedge, cheerfully; " t was a good 
 bit ago, but Mandy has kept her looks. 
 There, child, you needn t poke my shoulder. 
 I guess your mother can say that. You ve 
 been a real good girl, Mandy, too. Well, 
 now, sir, how do you like Penny ville? " 
 
 William found this much more comfortable 
 ground, even though Mrs. Gedge, in the most 
 delicate way in the world, said that she under 
 stood he was a widower, and of course it was 
 lonely for him in a strange place like Penny - 
 ville, and she hoped he d come often to see her 
 and Mandy. 
 
 "You ll always be real welcome, sir," she 
 assured him. "In our position we have n t 
 much time, we are so occupied; but I m sure 
 we 11 be glad to do anything we can for you," 
 she ended, with friendly patronage. "Won t 
 we, Mandy?" 
 
 "Yes, mother," said Amanda, faintly. 
 
 Mrs. Gedge made a little impatient cluck be- 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 275 
 
 tween her teeth; it was real silly for Amanda 
 to be so shy, she thought. She enjoyed this 
 visit very much, but she was tired when at 
 last her guest said good-by. As for William 
 Sprague, he went away with a very sober face. 
 
 It was only a few days now until the change 
 must be made. Amanda had altered so that 
 Mrs. Gedge would have been alarmed but for 
 this delightful interest of the beau. Not that 
 
 O 
 
 she named Mr. Sprague thus to Amanda; she 
 asked every conceivable question about him, 
 but she nursed her little hope in silence, with 
 small chuckles when she was alone, and with 
 knowing looks and nods when the neighbors 
 came in to gossip. She was too interested and 
 pleased with this very personal happiness to 
 notice any constraint in the talk of Sally Good 
 rich, or Mrs. Dace, or any one else; but there 
 was constraint. All the village joined Amanda 
 in shielding Mrs. Gedge as long as possible 
 from the dreadful knowledge that threatened 
 her. 
 
 The 1st of May \^as on Monday. On Thurs 
 day Amanda, her face set in haggard silence, 
 went up to the graveyard. She had decided to 
 tell her mother the next morning. There was 
 nothing to hope for now; her frantic appeal 
 to the department had only been answered by 
 a brief assurance of her mother s inefficiency. 
 
276 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 Once, before that assurance came, she lay awake 
 all night to plan a visit to Washington. She 
 could take some of Mrs. Gedge s one hundred 
 dollars out of the bank and go. She would 
 make some excuse to her mother, so that she 
 might not guess the humiliating truth. Yes, 
 she would see the President; she would tell 
 him. But the very next day came that brief, 
 decided answer from Washington that left her 
 nothing to hope for from the Government. 
 
 William Sprague, stolidly, but with the kind 
 est pity in his twinkling, anxious eyes, assured 
 her that there was nothing to hope for from 
 any other quarter. She felt no resentment 
 towards William; she believed him implicitly 
 when he told her it was not his fault. No, he 
 could not help it ; he had been sent. 
 
 She would go and sit by Willie awhile, she 
 said to herself, as she toiled wearily up the hill, 
 and plan what she should do when the -check 
 from Washington ceased to come. There was 
 a hundred dollars in the bank at Mercer, from 
 which Mrs. Gedge received four dollars and 
 fifty cents a year; that was all. They owned 
 their house, but it was of no value save as a 
 shelter. No one would buy or rent it. Every 
 body had a house of his own, everybody 
 except Mr. Sprague, and he had at once an 
 nounced his determination to live in the tavern, 
 
A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 277 
 
 that being cheaper and more comfortable than 
 housekeeping for a single man. Amanda could 
 sew, but who would give her work? All the 
 women in Pennyville did their own sewing, and 
 Mrs. Dace helped them with the rare occurrence 
 of a new dress. She could go up to the tavern 
 and help Mrs. Thyme in the summer; but at 
 two dollars a week for twelve weeks at the 
 very most, Mr. Thyme s summer boarders did 
 not stay longer than twelve weeks she could 
 only earn twenty -four dollars. 
 
 Amanda thought this all out, sitting there 
 by Willie, her elbows on her knees, her chin in 
 her hands, and her eyes staring blankly at a 
 dead mullein-stalk swaying in the wind. If she 
 went away to work, went to town, she might 
 keep her mother from the almshouse ; yes, that 
 was what she must do. She must take her to 
 Mercer; take her away from friends and neigh 
 bors; away from the old home. "Oh, I wish 
 mother might die before she knew it," this old 
 daughter said from her aching heart. Yes, 
 by taking her to town, she might keep her from 
 the poorhouse; but oh, there was no way to 
 save the heart-break, the pride that must be 
 trampled down, the violence of leaving the home 
 to which Adam Gedge had brought his bride, 
 and in which Amanda had been born and little 
 Charles had died, the misery of transplanted 
 
278 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 age ! Amanda had no more tears, but she drew 
 in her breath in a sort of moan. She found 
 herself wondering at those days of anxiety 
 about the album. How could she have been 
 worried over so little a thing? Ah, how 
 gladly would she exchange this new despair 
 for the old pain! Amanda sat upright and 
 wrung her hands. 
 
 " Mandy! " some one shouted from the road. 
 It was William Sprague; he was slipping the 
 leather loop from over the gate-post, and push 
 ing the old, sagging gate back across the grass. 
 "I want to speak to you, Mandy," he said, in 
 his loud, cheerful voice. "Your mother said 
 she believed you was up here. If you don t 
 mind, I 11 talk to you a bit." He had reached 
 her by this time, and stood watching her with 
 friendly concern. Jimmy came and sniffed her 
 hand, and then licked it with his little roujrh 
 
 O 
 
 tongue. Amanda did not notice him, and 
 William shook his head. "Why," he thought, 
 much impressed, "she don t see Jimmy! Man 
 dy," he said, "I ve thought of something. 
 It is n t perhaps just the thing you d like, 
 but it s the only thing I can think of. And 
 I m willing. Well, I I d really like it, 
 Mandy." 
 
 Amanda looked at him, her lips parted, and 
 with dilated eyes. 
 
A FOUBTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 279 
 
 "If we was to get married?" said William, 
 and paused. 
 
 Amanda Gedge did not seem to understand 
 him; she made no answer. 
 
 "You see, it s like this: Your ma d be 
 pleased, and she d never know anything. I d 
 have a home, and I d be comfortable. And I 
 don t mind being married at all; honest, I d 
 just as lief. And I like you, Mandy. It s 
 only fair to say that. I told your ma I liked 
 you, and I was coming up here to tell you so. 
 So let s get married." 
 
 "You told mother? " said Amanda, in a whis 
 per. Her heart beat so that it seemed as 
 though she could not breathe. 
 
 "You haven t thought that way about me, I 
 know," he said, apologetically; "but look at it, 
 Mandy; it will make it all right for the old 
 lady, and we can t make it all right any other 
 way. We ve got to arrange it between our 
 selves, me and you and your mother. And, 
 honest, I can t see any other way out of it; and 
 I think you re a real nice girl, Mandy. I like 
 you so I do. Now, if you can only just make 
 up your mind to me?" 
 
 Amanda Gedge put her hand down on the 
 grass as though she were groping for some other 
 hand to help her. "Oh, what shall I do? " she 
 said. 
 
280 A FOURTH-CLASS APPOINTMENT. 
 
 William Sprague sat down beside her, and 
 then remembered the imprudence of sitting on 
 the grass in April, and rose. "I thought it all 
 out," he assured her, "and it come to me last 
 night all of a sudden. 4 Well, there ! says I to 
 myself, and we neither of us thought of it ! 
 But it s the only thing to do. It will straighten 
 out everything. What do you say, Mandy?" 
 
 But she had nothing to say. She saw the bit 
 of dim glass in the slate headstone, and caught 
 the last line of the inscription, "Mourned by 
 his friends." She put her hands over her face. 
 "Oh, Willie! "she said. 
 
 "Well, now, there! that s right," said Wil 
 liam, heartily. "My first wife called me that, 
 and I like to hear it again. We 11 get along 
 first rate, Mandy, me and you and Jimmy 
 and the old lady. Come, now, it s all settled, 
 ain t it?" 
 
 She drew a half-sobbing breath before she 
 could speak. " I don t know I don t know! 
 I think I 11 go home now, Mr. Sprague. I 
 thank you; indeed I do; but I must see mo 
 ther. I must go home. Oh, it will save 
 mother. Oh, you are very kind to think of 
 it William." 
 
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